Region appears to have escaped worst of flu season

Taranaki got lucky with flu this winter, with one of the quietest seasons on record.

The Taranaki District Health Board said the reasons for the quiet season were unknown.

Dr Jonathan Jarman, Taranaki District Health Board’s Medical Officer of Health, said flu was tricky because the virus mutated and the strain changed every year. ‘‘We had expected to see the A/H3N2 strain which caused massive outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere last winter but it has failed to materialise in New Zealand. The main strain in New Zealand is currently the A/H1N1 strain. This is the strain that arrived in New Zealand in 2009 and was called swine flu.’’

He said it was not possible to predict what would happen in the next few weeks, but the influenza vaccine was available until the end of the year. ‘‘Some parts of the country, such as Northland, have had an upsurge in influenza hospitalisations in the last few days.’’

Around the country, Wellington received a late spike of influenza patients, with about 120 patients with flu-like symptoms presenting at Wellington Regional Hospital’s emergency department in the last month, adding to a significant surge in influenza cases across Capital and Coast District Health Board hospitals.

In Whangarei, six patients and six staff in a surgical ward at Whangarei Hospital had fallen ill with influenza, Northland District Health Board said. The hospital had grouped the patients together to contain the infection.

After a relatively flu-free season, national figures fell below baseline levels with about half the usual number of patients admitted to Christchurch Hospital’s intensive care unit. The annual spike of flu-like illness in August did not eventuate and September was expected to end the flu season relatively steady.

David Fabish, owner and head pharmacist at Vogeltown Pharmacy, said it had been a reasonably quiet season. ‘‘To be perfectly honest I haven’t seen many cases of the flu this winter.’’

Most people with flu would be more likely to go to a GP, or the hospital if they were elderly, but even colds hadn’t been that bad, he said.

The influenza national surveillance shows in the past week the ‘‘indicators of respiratory virus activity and severity generally decreased, which could signal that we are approaching the end of the 2018 season. However, influenza virus detection from samples taken during GP visits remained high (>40 per cent), so a further increase in flu activity is possible.’’