Southwest Georgia sees later flu peak this season

ALBANY — This flu season, health officials in Southwest Georgia have reported that the peak has occurred, but later than usual. They are further emphasizing that is not too late to get inoculated.

Jacqueline Jenkins, epidemiologist with the Southwest Public Health District, said there was an increase of activity in mid-February. There have been clusters of flu-like illness in elementary schools in Dougherty County, as well as other school districts, and hospitalizations within the 14-county public health district have doubled — possibly tripled — since the December and January timeframe.

“It started out slow, but has really picked up,” she said.

Jenkins said the activity has mainly consisted of Influenza A. She added she has not seen any indication this year’s vaccine is not effective, further adding that weather fluctuations in the region and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, season could be among the contributing factors to the recent increase.

The recent spike is consistent with what would be seen during a flu season peak, but it did take place a few weeks later than expected, Jenkins said.

The epidemiologist said the message remains to keep children at home while they have a fever or other flu-like symptoms, to maintain proper hand and respiratory hygiene to help prevent the spread and to get the flu vaccine. Communication with schools continue, as does the anticipation that clusters will still pop up before this flu season winds down, she said.

Flu season often has an impact on emergency room traffic, as it has this year. Infants, young children, elementary school children and people age 55 and older have been the populations who have needed surveillance of flu the most in Southwest Georgia this year, Jenkins said.

The CDC reports this season’s flu vaccine is nearly 60 percent effective against all circulating viruses. The vaccine is recommended yearly for everyone 6 months and older. More than 146.4 million doses of flu vaccine have been distributed in the U.S. Traditional flu vaccines made to protect against three different flu viruses, called trivalent vaccines, are available as are vaccines made to protect against four different flu viruses, or quadrivalents.

Symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, muscle or body aches, headaches and fatigue. Some people may have vomiting and diarrhea, though that symptom is more common in children. The flu viruses spread mainly by respiratory droplets of an infected person one day before they show symptoms up until a week afterward.

The CDC said complications of flu can include pneumonia, bronchitis, ear infections, sinus infections, dehydration and worsening of chronic medical conditions including congestive heart failure, asthma or diabetes.

The latest available FluView report from the CDC said flu activity increased in the United States with the number of states reporting widespread flu activity increasing from 37 to 40. For the week that ended March 12, the proportion of people seeing their health care provider for influenza-like illness increased from 3.5 percent to 3.7 percent, above the national baseline of 2.1 percent.

The same report said Georgia was one of more than a dozen states experiencing high activity.