A Particularly Nasty Flu Season

A Particularly Nasty Flu Season.
The United States is in the engross of a very nasty flu season, federal health officials said Friday, due - in humongous part - to a strain of the virus that's hitting the elderly and children mainly hard. That strain is called H3N2 flu, and it's not a good match to the strains in this year's flu vaccine. As a result, thousands of hoi polloi are being hospitalized and 26 children have died from flu so far, Dr Tom Frieden, top banana of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a twelve press briefing. "Years that have H3N2 predominance be biased to have more hospitalizations and more deaths.

Frieden said hospitalization rates for flu have risen to 92 per 100000 folk this season, primarily due to the H3N2 strain. This compares to a typical year of 52 hospitalizations per 100000 people. In an run-of-the-mill year, more than 200000 people are hospitalized for flu and the digit of children's deaths varies from as few as 30 to as many as 170 or more, CDC officials said. Although it's the halfway of the flu season, the CDC continues to recommend that everybody 6 months and older get a flu shot.

The reason: there's more than one type of flu labour circulating, and the vaccine protects against at least three strains of circulating virus. Frieden also stressed the advantage of antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu (oseltamivir) and Relenza (inhaled zanamivir), especially this year. "Treatment with antiviral flu drugs is even more eminent this year. These drug work, but they aren't being cast-off nearly enough. They can reduce symptoms, shorten the duration of illness and prevent serious complications.

They could even preserve your life". To be most effective these drugs need to be given early, at the sign of first symptoms. Common flu symptoms can contain fever, chills, cough, sore throat, muscle aches and fatigue. Vomiting and diarrhea are seen more often in children with flu than adults. People at endanger of flu-related complications take in young children, especially those younger than 2 years; people over 65; up the spout women; and people with chronic health problems, such as asthma, heart disease and weakened untouched systems, according to the CDC.

Most people recover from the flu anywhere from a few days to a bit less than two weeks. But others permit life-threatening complications, such as pneumonia, according to the CDC. Warning signs of practicable complications include a cough that disrupts sleep, a fever that doesn't come down with treatment, or increased shortness of breath, according to the US Food and Drug Administration. Flu seasons are unpredictable, according to the CDC. Each year, on average, 5 percent to 20 percent of the US folk gets the flu hgh hzg. During a 30-year period, from 1976 to 2006, estimates of flu-related deaths in the United States ranged from a morose of about 3000 to a steep of about 49000 people, the working said.