Flu Season's Starting to Rear Its Head

FRIDAY, Dec. 16, 2016 (HealthDay Information) -- Flu season is beginning to take maintain throughout the nation, and U.S. well being officers are urging everybody who hasn't gotten a flu shot but to get one now.

"Flu exercise continues to be fairly low, but it surely's beginning to enhance," Lynnette Brammer, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, stated Friday.

Though flu is scattered all through america, the toughest hit locations to date are New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, the Southeast and the Northwest, Brammer stated. Many of the virus out there's influenza H3N2, she added. That pressure is a part of this yr's flu vaccine, in response to the CDC.

"And this week for the primary time, now we have information on preliminary hospitalizations," Brammer stated. "The vary of hospitalization continues to be low, nevertheless. As you'll suspect with a H3N2 season, the very best fee proper now's within the aged."

The general fee of hospitalizations for flu is about 2 out of each 100,000 hospitalizations. Within the aged it is 7 per each 100,000, Brammer stated. These numbers are according to the final 4 to 5 years of flu information, she stated.

Flu exercise will choose up, she stated. "We do not know the way extreme the season goes to be, so there's nonetheless time to get vaccinated. And getting vaccinated is one of the best ways to guard your self," she stated.

This yr's season is beginning out very like final yr, Brammer stated. Presently, influenza H3N2 is the predominant pressure, she stated, though H1N1 can also be circulating. Final yr, the H3N2 virus began out because the dominant pressure, solely to be displaced by H1N1 as flu season hit full swing. "It ended up being an H1N1 season," she stated.

"It is just like plenty of years proper now," Brammer added. "Issues ought to begin to choose up within the subsequent few weeks, however we'll see. Final yr, issues did not actually choose up till the primary of the yr."

Final yr's flu season was significantly laborious on older individuals.