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Cambridge porters given hepatitis jabs to protect against bingeing students
Last updated at 15:37pm on 06.03.07
Cambridge college porters and contract cleaners at Gonville and Cauis College are being given the jabs
Cambridge University is supposed to be a place where students consume vast amounts of information and regurgitate it in essays and exams.
But the burgeoning binge-drinking culture means many are instead consuming huge quantities of alcohol before bringing it up wherever they stagger.
The problem has become so common, staff at one college are now being vaccinated against Hepatitis B because they spend so much time wiping up vomit.
College porters and contract cleaners at Gonville and Cauis College are being given the jabs to protect them against the liver disease, which can cause cancer.
Porters' duties include keeping courtyards and other outside areas spotless, while cleaners are responsible for maintaining the interior of buildings.
Gonville and Caius was founded in 1348 and alumni include Attorney General Lord Goldsmith and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Ken Clarke. Physicist Stephen Hawking is one of its fellows.
In an email to students at the college, union president Tor Garnett said: "There have been cases of vomit blocking the sinks and covering walls and floors.
"It has to be cleared up by contract cleaners who have been trained and have had a Hepatitis B injection.
"If the sink has been blocked a plumber has to unblock it. Unsurprisingly college staff are furious."
She added: "Vomit issues have occurred before, but never as frequently as this. The college believes the majority of it is due to first years drinking more than their limit."
Pennying, a game in which students drop coins in a glass then knock drinks back in one to retrieve them, is being partly blamed for rowdy and drunken behaviour.
Several Cambridge colleges have now banned it at formal dinners and imposed a limit of half a bottle of wine on undergraduates at the events.
Many of the university's notorious drinking clubs have also been banned. But students cannot be stopped from drinking at pubs, clubs or in their rooms.
Camilla Marsh, head housekeeper at Gonville and Caius, said: 'We do get quite a bit of sick. "If it is in outside areas the porters wash it away but more often than not it's in communal areas and that's cleaned by contract cleaners."
Domestic bursar Ian Herd said the incidents of vomit had occurred in the Michaelmas term - the first of the academic year - when excited new students descend on the university.
"It was a small number of students, mainly freshers, who got carried away on being away from home for the first time," he said.
"There has been a great improvement since then, but I would be a fool to say it won't happen again."
Britain has become the binge-drinking capital of the world in recent years, with young people most at risk.
In the past three years, the number of 18-year-olds admitted to hospital in alcohol-related incidents has soared 20 per cent.
Booze has also been linked to a surge in abortions and a recent study found women claiming to be victims of 'date-rape' drugs had usually been rendered helpless by drink.
Several university students have died in recent years, including Exeter University student Gavin Britton, 18, who effectively drank himself to death on a pub crawl with friends last November.
Hepatitis B is more than 100 times more infectious than HIV. It is commonly passed on through blood but another source is dirty needles in tattoo parlours or shared by drug users.
The disease attacks the liver and can cause lifelong infection, jaundice, cirrhosis and liver failure or cancer.
