BOULDER, Colo. -- Suspected cases of the H1N1 virus are spreading like wildfire on the University of Colorado, Boulder campus. The number of suspected cases has jumped more than seven times in just six days, from eight on Aug. 21, to an estimated 49 on Friday.

“I think we are all learning how quickly it spreads,” said CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard.

Hilliard said there may be many more sick students who have not reported their illness to the University health center.

The students have tested positive for Influenza A, of which the H1N1 virus is a strain. The state of Colorado only tests patients for H1N1 if they have been hospitalized. None of the infected students at CU have been hospitalized but university officials said there is a 90 percent likelihood that the students do, in fact, have H1N1.

“This virus is out there,” Hilliard said. “It doesn’t look like it’s really going to be contained too well, and what we’ve got to do is deal with the reality of having a lot of sick people.”

CU is not the only campus dealing with new cases, but it is reporting the most cases. Colorado State has confirmed two cases of the virus. The Auraria campus has not confirmed any, but suspects that there are students who have contracted the virus and have not reported it. The University of Denver has no confirmed cases, but school does not start there until next week.

The Centers for Disease Control has not recommended quarantines on college campuses, but some schools nationwide have started restricting sick students to empty dorms to cut down on infection rates. Hilliard said CU is at dorm capacity and simply does not have the space to isolate students.

University officials considered sending infected students to hotels, but with the big CSU game approaching, hotels are expected to be full. Hilliard said isolating the students to hotels would be impractical anyway, because healthy students still run the risk of contracting the virus off-campus.

Instead the university is keeping lines of communication open with students and parents, encouraging sanitation, adding extra nurses to its health center, and urging students with symptoms to stay home.

“We’re messaging to them very strongly that if they’re sick they need to stay in their residence hall rooms until one day after their fever is over,” said Hilliard.

But some believe sick students are bucking the rules and going to class anyway, spreading the virus even further.

Danielle Royer was homebound for 10 days with a suspected case of the virus. She said students with similar symptoms to hers are showing up in class every day.

“Everybody’s coughing [in class],” said Royer. “So people are obviously still going even though they’re starting to get sick or are sick. It’s kind of inevitable.”

Hilliard said it is virtually impossible for the university to monitor students to ensure that they stay out of class.

“Unless we get some kind of emergency order from the state or federal government, there really isn’t,” he said. “People are really free to do what they want to do.”

Hilliard acknowledged that could result in a worst case scenario situation for the university: an infection rate of 25 percent, and a 40 percent absence rate among staff.

But Hilliard said the university has a plan to handle such a situation. School would remain open, but staff would be allowed to work from home. Healthy employees from other departments would fill in for staff who were unable to work from home.

“There’s no use in being nervous,” said Hilliard. “We’ve got a plan. We’re all in this together. We think we can get through a situation where we have lots of people sick for four or five days.”