The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
New warning issued on flu
It’s a challenging year; children should be vaccinated, docs say
NEW HAVEN — With dramatic rises in flu hospitalizations and the death of 10-year-old Nico Mallozzi, of New Canaan, experts expect this flu season to be more challenging than past years.
“Most of the time people who get sick with influenza recover and do well,” said Dr. Richard Martinello, director of infection control at Yale New Haven Hospital. “Some years we see more flu activity and some years we see people getting sicker than they usually do. I think this is shaping up to one of those years.”
From late August 2017 through Jan. 14, the state Department of Public Health reports there have been 1,342 laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza. Of those, 615 required hospitalization, with 68 of those confirmed hospitalizations in New Haven, according to Dr. Byron Kennedy of the New Haven Department of Health.
While Martinello does not know how this flu season will end, he said it is on track to be more severe than usual, with flu cases peaking late this month or in early February and possibly continuing through the beginning of April.
Dr. Matthew Cartter, director of infections diseases at the state Department of Public Health, said he believes a contributing factor may be various flu strains occurring concurrently.
He said doctors usually see an outbreak of Influenza A — which includes both H3N2 AND H1N1 — from December through February, with the outbreak of Influenza B happening later. However, this year, they’re seeing an earlier outbreak of Influenza B, so both strains are occurring almost simultaneously.
Influenza includes symptoms such as fever, body aches, cough, sore throat and runny or stuffy nose. It can range from mild to severe and can lead to death in some cases. As Cartter put it: “You feel like you’ve been run over by a truck.”
In Connecticut, there have been a total of 21 influenza-associated deaths as of Jan. 14. Of those deaths, 17 of the patients were older than 65, two were between 50 to 64 years old, one was between 25 and 49 years of age and one was Nico Mallozzi, DPH reports.
“Anyone who’s a parent or not agrees that the death of a child is always tragic, especially in the case when you have a vaccine that can potentially prevent this,” said Cartter.
Cartter said it’s really important to educate parents about vaccinating their children, noting pediatric deaths can occur even in children who have been vaccinated, with those who have an underlying illness such as asthma at a higher risk.
Cartter said there was a “dramatic” increase in children who died from the flu in Colorado in 2004, which led to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requiring that states report influenzaassociated pediatric deaths.
“Before then, most people thought influenza isn’t really serious for kids, but it’s always been serious for kids, especially those under the age of 5,” he said.
Kennedy noted that Connecticut is a leader in the country when it comes to flu requirements. While all 50 states have legal requirements for specific immunizations for children attending school, Connecticut requires immunization against influenza for young children enrolled in both licensed day care or preschool programs. After adopting the policy, he said Connecticut saw hospitalizations for preschoolers drop, adding that other states have used the policy as a model.
Martinello said flu vaccines are generally around 60 percent effective in prevention, noting that the vaccine is tweaked every year in an attempt to target what are projected to be the most prevalent strains of the disease. However, due to reports of the flu vaccination being less effective than past years, some are choosing to forgo getting a flu shot, he said.
While this is based on preliminary data about what happened in Australia — the country saw its largest number of influenza cases since 2009, according to the Australian Department of Health —and preliminary studies in the United States, Kennedy said it’s still too early to determine whether or not the flu vaccine that are actually offered right now are a good match.
“Even though you may not necessarily have a perfect match of a flu vaccination for the current flu season, it’s still appropriate and it’s still a good thing to get a flu vaccination because you are still getting some protection,” he said.
Martinello and Dr. Louise-Marie Dembry, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the Yale Medical School, have previously noted the most severe complication of flu is pneumonia.