FLU EPIDEMIC Hospitals face record numbers
Anyone who’s gotten it can tell you the flu is pretty bad this year. And while officials are saying it’s at the height of the season, it’s still months before things will get better.
“I think the simplest way to describe it is that the flu is everywhere in the U.S. right now,” Dr. Dan Jernigan, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s Influenza Division, said. “There’s lots of flu in lots of places.”
Yet, he added, “Flu seasons every year are bad, so there’s never a mild flu season.”
Dr. George K. Avetian, Delaware County’s senior medical advisor, agreed.
“It’s everywhere right now,” he said. “The (Centers for Disease Control and Preventions have) declared this current flu season an epidemic. There is widespread flu activity in all of the states of the continental United States. That hasn’t happened for 13 years.”
According to Rutgers University, the outbreak is the most widespread on record, as statistics on influenza began to be tracked about a dozen years ago.
The most prevalent strain is the H3N2. It’s an influenza A strain, meaning it’s a severe version that can cause individuals to be very ill.
At the Jan. 10 Delaware County Council meeting, Avetian reported 385 cases of flu in Delaware County since October.
He also noted that nationwide 13 children had died due to the flu.
“In the one week period, we have seven additional,” Avetian said Thursday, bringing the pediatric death total due to the influenza to 20.
“Hospitalizations are now at 22.7 per 100,000,” he said. “That’s double what it was a week earlier.”
The physician explained that the situation is being replicated throughout the country.
“What we’re seeing in Delaware County is just a reflection of our surrounding counties,” he said. “The numbers are high in Bucks County, Montgomery, Delaware and Chester.”
The flu symptoms include sudden onset, fever, chills, headache, muscle or body aches, cough, congestion, fatigue and a little bit of throat discomfort.
“If you have symptoms, immediately seek medical attention,” Avetian said. “If you’re sick, do not expose others. Stay home. You want to make sure you completely convalesce until you go back out into the public. My instructions to my patients are usually bed rest, hydrate, take the medication, try to stay home anywhere from four to five days.”
There are that the flu. certain circumstances could complicate Alfred Tallia is chair of Rutgers’ Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the Robert Wood Johnson MedEPIDEMIC » PAGE 5