Flu Season is in full swing

Did you know that Flu season hits it’s peak in the first week of February? I did not but I thought that flu season was a long drawn out affair but in fact the CDC, the center for disease control tracks flu season on a week by week basis.

This year it looks as though for once the flu shots that people have been getting are only 40% effective compared to most years average of about 90% effective. Early in the year the expected predominant flus are decided and a flu shot cocktail is devised to fight the main flus expected for the next winter. In 16 of the last 19 years the CDC has guessed right, this is not once of those years.

Here is a quote from Dr Joe Bresee from theCDC.

After relatively low levels of influenza activity in the early part of the season, since January influenza activity has been picking up in the nation as I said last week. This week 44 states are reporting widespread influenza activity. This is up from 31 states reporting widespread activity last week. Five states are reporting regional activity, making 49 states overall in one of our top two categories of activity.

Overall this week a third of specimens tested by the U.S. World Health Organization laboratories in the United States which is one of the ways that we track influenza activity, are reporting positive specimens, so one-third of the specimens tested for influenza are positive which has increased from last week′s total as well.

In addition, this week we will report ten child deaths have occurred from influenza during this season. Nine of these deaths have occurred since January 1 and the increase coincides with the overall increase in influenza activity in the nation.

Surveillance information from this week indicates that the H3N2 virus, which again is one of the two A-type viruses, or A subtypes, is currently the virus that′s circulating most widely in the United States this week and has become the predominant virus in the country this year.

Finally I’ll finish by just saying that CDC would like to remind folks that – I’m sorry, CDC would like to remind people that they can still take additional measures besides vaccination, although vaccination remains the best method of prevention for influenza vaccine.

We’d like to remind folks that other methods are available to prevent or treat the influenza, including protective – everyday protective actions like staying home from work when you’re sick and use of – appropriate use of antiviral medications.

That’s all I had as my short preamble, but I’m happy to answer questions about any parts of the report of the season that you have.

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