Calgary influenza death first of season in the province

One person has died in a Calgaryarea hospital from influenza — the first such death in the province this season.

Alberta Health Services has confirmed a person died some time before Nov. 26 after being hospitalized with the flu. A spokesman would not confirm the hospital nor the person’s age or gender due to privacy concerns.

The flu virus has struck Calgary particularly hard, with 245 laboratory confirmed cases of influenza A and three cases of influenza B. Eighty people have been admitted to hospital in Calgary with the flu since Aug. 28.

“We expect influenza every year and it has to show up somewhere first. In previous years it started in the north,” said Dr. Judy MacDonald, AHS medical officer of health for the Calgary zone.

“This year it is early.... In Calgary we saw some outbreaks in midSeptember.”

MacDonald said the virus circulating in Alberta right now is the A (H3) strain which affects the elderly. She urged seniors to get immunized but also said their family members need to get the shot to reduce risk. She noted 875,000 doses of the vaccine have been administered in Alberta so far, which is more than this time last year.

While Calgary is battling the bug, the rest of the province is relatively unscathed by flu so far.

The AHS south zone has recorded 44 lab-confirmed cases of flu A and B, the central zone has 38, Edmonton zone has 28 and the north zone has 16.

The number of people hospitalized is also lower elsewhere in Alberta: 14 in the south zone, seven in the central zone, 12 in Edmonton and five in the north.

Calgary pharmacists are seeing a corresponding increase in the number of people wanting to get immunized.

“I’d say we’re up 25 per cent over last year,” said David Brewerton, pharmacist at Lukes Drug Mart in Bridgeland. “We’ve given over 300 shots so far” since Oct. 24 when pharmacies could begin administering the vaccine.

“We’re definitely hearing a lot more comments from people about the flu and getting immunized.”

Last year, Alberta recorded 5,311 cases of confirmed flu, with 1,698 hospitalizations and 62 flu-related deaths.