Spring kicks off with flu spike

A late spike in influenza cases has put patients into intensive care, and disrupted surgeries at Wellington Regional Hospital.

About 120 patients with flulike symptoms have presented at Wellington Regional Hospital’s emergency department each of the past three weeks, adding to a significant surge in influenza cases across Capital and Coast District Health Board (CCDHB) hospitals. Wellington Hospital’s intensive care unit was looking after 10 influenza patients on Monday, three of whom were children. Two surgeries scheduled for Tuesday were postponed due to the unusual number of flu patients requiring intensive care, a CCDHB spokesman said. Five of the 10 in intensive care on Monday have been discharged, including the children.

Hawke’s Bay Hospital had four patients receive intensive care treatment for the flu in August. ‘‘In the past few days, we have seen an increase in presentations to the emergency department of people with flu-like illness,’’ a Hawke’s Bay DHB spokeswoman said. ‘‘However, none needed intensive care.’’

Hutt Valley DHB infectious diseases physician Dr Matthew Kelly said the flu season had come late but it wasn’t too late to get vaccinated.

‘‘This year we had relatively few patients with influenza until early August and since then have seen increasing numbers,’’ he said. ‘‘A higher proportion than usual are children.’’

Figures from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research show 58 of every 100,000 registered CCDHB patients went to their GPS with influenza-like illness in the week ending August 26. That was twice as much as the weekly average across the country’s 20 DHBS of 27.3 per 100,000. Flu infections can be fatal in rare cases but are much rarer than colds and will hit most adults only twice in their lives.

The only way to catch a cold or flu is through person-to-person transmission. It occurs if the virus gets into a person’s respiratory tract, either through their nose or mouth or their eyes.

Young children get six to eight colds on average each year, while for adults it is two to four. People get fewer colds as they age because immunity is built up to some cold-causing viruses.