Influenza flourishing, but not like last season
Vaccination ‘still better than nothing’ as peak season for virus arrives: expert
Anyone with flu symptoms such as aches and sniffles won’t take much consolation from medical experts who say the 2017-18 season’s outbreak of influenza isn’t as severe as last season.
During the next couple of weeks, Metro Vancouver will be entering the annual peak period for outbreaks of influenza, said Dr. Mark Lysyshyn, medical health officer for Vancouver Coastal Health.
“We’re seeing an increasing number of flu cases and outbreaks,” said Lysyshyn, responsible for the North Shore and Sea to Sky areas.
“So far, this year is not as bad as last year at this time, when we saw a lot of flu presentations to our emergency rooms.”
This news is of little comfort to Vancouver restaurant server Geneviève Rainey, who said she celebrated New Year’s Eve with a shot of cough syrup after falling ill Sunday.
The 40-year-old said she’s generally healthy and believes she’s built up some immunity to germs through her frequent interactions with customers over the past 15 years. But the flu going around right now had her feeling the worst she’s felt in more than a decade.
“It takes a lot to take me down, and this one totally caught me off guard,” Rainey said.
“I didn’t think I was going to get it. Everyone else was getting it over Christmas and I was like, ‘Nope, I’m good,’ and took care of myself. Sure enough, I got it anyway.”
Despite spending the stroke of midnight New Year’s Eve in the back of a cab, desperate to get home to bed, Rainey said she was grateful the flu came on her two days off so that she wouldn’t miss work and let down her colleagues.
She started feeling better Wednesday, after two days of her tried-and-true regime for beating the flu: bundling up in wool socks and a tuque, cranking up the thermostat, drinking lots of fluids and frequently changing her pyjamas and sheets.
Rainey did not get the 2017-18 flu shot.
The flu virus enters the body through the nose, eyes or mouth. Because touching a hand to any of those areas is potentially a way to transmit the flu virus, frequent hand-washing is recommended as one way to prevent getting infected.
What is different this year, Lysyshyn said, is that in addition to cases of influenza A, medical officials are seeing lots of influenza B.
Lysyshyn said the usual pattern is an epidemic of influenza A to start which peters off before a spike of influenza B at the end of the flu season. “Right now we’re seeing more influenza B cases than anything else,” he said.
Influenza type A viruses are capable of infecting animals and often wild birds act as hosts; influenza B is found only in humans.
In 2016-17, the flu vaccine effectiveness rating for Canada was 37 per cent.
Even if the effectiveness rating this flu season is within the same range, it still means a significant portion of people will avoid catching the flu, Lysyshyn said.
“It’s still better than nothing,” he said. “It (vaccination) is always a bit of a challenge with influenza because it changes so much.”
The B.C. Centre for Disease Control recommends people give the vaccine two weeks to build immunity in the body. Flu shots are still available from pharmacists and family doctors.
Dr. Danuta Skowronski, physician epidemiologist at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, said the influenza B activity is “early and unusual” in B.C. this season.
“Although we are receiving outbreak reports, this is less than last year when we had clear influenza A (H3N2) predominance — the latter notoriously harder on the elderly.”
Skowronski said the BCCDC doesn’t tally deaths caused by influenza, because counts are unreliable since most cases of influenza are not confirmed by lab results.
“By the time someone dies from influenza, the virus is often no longer detectable,” she said in an emailed statement.
Skowronski said it’s still too early to determine the effectiveness of the 2017-18 season’s vaccine.
The flu virus is highly adaptable. Someone with the flu is also susceptible to other infections, including viral or bacterial pneumonia.
Flu symptoms can include fever, headache, muscle pain, runny nose, sore throat, extreme tiredness and cough, according to the BCCDC. In children, symptoms can include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
The peak season for flu outbreaks, according to data compiled by the BCCDC, is from the last week of the year to the second to fourth weeks of the year. Outbreaks continue high through to the 11th and 13th week of the year before tapering off until starting to rise again about week 40.