Flu statistics show big lift

HEALTH professionals have been run off their feet in recent months with July and August proving to be the peak of this year’s influenza season.

Tropical Public Health Services (Cairns) director Dr Richard Gair said the flu season started at a slightly different time each year, but usually from about July to September.

He said 24 people, ranging from babies through to 80year-olds, went to Cairns Hospital with a diagnosis of influenza, para-influenza, influenza-like illness, or influ- enza A virus present from June to August.

“We always get a peak around this time of year, but the timing of the peak varies,” he said. “This year the number of cases is higher than in recent years. Influenza is very infectious.”

Queensland Ambulance Service medical director Dr Stephen Rashford said it had been the service’s busiest year on record.

“On any given flu season we have different types of influenza affecting numerous individuals,” he said. “But what we have seen is the overall number of people suffering flu-like illness this year have been the highest on record.

“The reality is that when you get influenza, a very severe bout, it really knocks you about and part of the symptoms are you feel like you’re going to die.”

Recent figures from Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service showed there had been 712 confirmed influenza cases in the Cairns region so far this year, a 36 per cent increase on last year’s total number (521) of flu cases and a 110 per cent rise on 2015. A case of Haemophilus influenzae type B was also confirmed in an adult last month.