Flu Season

Hospital emergency rooms, doctors' offices, and the nation's sinuses have been less congested this winter, thanks to the mildest flu season in at least six years. The 2000-01 flu season, which began in October with vaccine shortages, has turned out to be one of the lightest in recent memory for deaths, contagion, and other effects on health, said Keiji Fukuda, chief of influenza epidemiology at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. "We were incredibly lucky," said Janet Englund, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Chicago.

As families scramble to get ready for the first day of school, they may not be thinking about the coming flu season, but after last year's H1N1 outbreak, city officials have one message for Philadelphia parents: Keep your sick kids at home! "If a parent sees the symptoms . . . please keep your child home until such time as these symptoms go away," Tom?s Hanna, the chief of school operations, said during a media briefing yesterday with city Public Health Department officials. On Tuesday, letters will be sent to parents explaining H1N1 prevention techniques and why it is important that children with flu symptoms don't go to school.

The flu season is off to a sluggish start, but public health experts say that does not necessarily mean it will be a mild year. The viral illness typically doesn't peak until late January or early February - and doctors say it still makes sense to get a flu shot. "This year it's been pretty slow," said Andre Weltman, public health physician for the Pennsylvania Department of Health, "but unfortunately that doesn't tell us how bad it's going to be. " New Jersey and federal health officials offer similar assessments.

Claude Lewis is a veteran Philadelphia journalist Lots of people are unhappy at the end of summer because it spells the end of carefree travel, lengthy vacations and play on the beach. I hate summer's end for one main reason - it usually ushers in the beginning of flu season. Some of us think of the flu as just a cold, but those who think that way usually have not experienced how devastating the flu can be. Because it can be devastating, I'm writing to persuade folks to get themselves immunized.

Don't stick around in crowded places. And wash your hands often. That's the advice state health officials have for you lucky folks out there who haven't gotten the flu . . . yet. Tests have now confirmed that this year's flu has arrived in Philadelphia, right on schedule for its annual late January appearance. It swept in from central Pennsylvania, where state health department officials say it hit about 2,000 students at Penn State University in State College over a period of a week and a half.

NEW YORK - From the Rocky Mountains to New England, hospitals are swamped with people with flu symptoms. Some medical centers are turning away visitors or making them wear face masks, and one Allentown, Pa., hospital set up a tent outside its emergency room to deal with the feverish patients. Flu season in the United States has struck early and, in many places, hard. While flu normally doesn't blanket the country until late January or February, it is already widespread in 40 states, with about 30 reporting some major hot spots.

As the latest flu season trails off, area hospitals can once again handle daily emergency-room crowds, which were overflowing just one month ago. "I think the flu epidemic has subsided. The flu had our census much higher a month ago," said Scott Lux, public relations director at Phoenixville Hospital. Heavy flu seasons strike every few years. Flu and its complications can kill 50,000 Americans during such seasons. The flu was not the only reason for record-high patient populations in January.

As states in the West grapple with an unusually early and nasty flu season, public health officials here urge residents to get flu shots before the full force of the virus hits. Cases of the flu already have been reported throughout Pennsylvania, and labs in Philadelphia reported a big increase in confirmed cases last week, representatives of the state and city Health Departments said. There have been only three confirmed cases so far in New Jersey. Nationally, the flu seasons of the last three years were relatively mild.

The flu is here and gathering strength, but, so far, the flu season in Pennsylvania and New Jersey has been relatively mild, health officials said. Only 17 cases of the viral disease have been reported in Pennsylvania, but doctors are not required to report or test every suspected flu case. Rather, the state keeps track of cases to see how widespread the flu is and whether the strains in circulation are susceptible to this year's vaccine. The good news, for those of you who got the shot, is that it should be effective against the flu germs in this region.

DEAR ABBY: Now is the time of year your readers should get vaccinated against influenza to protect themselves and their loved ones throughout the 2010-11 flu season. This year, our nation has a new and very simple recommendation to keep our population safe: Everyone 6 months of age and older should get vaccinated! Doing it now will protect you throughout the entire flu season, which can run into the spring months. The influenza vaccine is safe - you cannot get influenza from it. In addition to getting vaccinations in doctors' offices, people can receive them in pharmacies, supermarkets, senior centers and schools.

DESPITE THE decades-long fight against influenza, it's still a killer. This flu season, Pennsylvania health officials have confirmed more than 170 influenza-associated deaths. Nationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported outbreaks of influenza across the country, and estimated deaths soared from prior years. The severity of this year's epidemic underscores the importance of getting a yearly flu shot, which protects against the flu. But it also exposes the fact that every year the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gambles on you and the flu. Each year in the United States, influenza infection results in an estimated 31 million outpatient visits, 226,000 hospitalizations, and 36,000 deaths.

While many hospitals seemed to scramble this flu season to accommodate unexpected crowds, behind the scenes a small change likely made things better: staff flu shots. After years of talk, recommendations by a slew of medical groups, and thousands of hours spent on less-effective alternatives, policies mandating immunization for health-care workers are finally catching on. Southeastern Pennsylvania has been unusually aggressive, with more than half the region's hospitals reporting that 90 percent or more of their employees were vaccinated last year.

NEW YORK - The flu season has created a scramble at New Jersey Limo Bus & Limousine. Two of the company's seven full-time employees called in sick at the same time. They were in charge of maintaining and cleaning the limos and buses. Two part-time drivers also called in sick. "It's very difficult to get things done," says Ann Marie Brasco, owner of the Fairfield, N.J., firm. The epidemic is giving small businesses across the country their own case of the flu. Productivity is suffering, meetings and conference calls are being canceled as employees call in sick, and owners are getting nervous as project deadlines approach.

Doctors and hospitals around the region report a continuing upsurge in respiratory infections that have sickened patients of all ages but have not been as severe as some had feared, at least so far. "There are a ton of people sick right now," said family physician John Russell, who sees patients in his office at Abington Memorial Hospital. "I think this is a flu epidemic. But it is not a take-your-breath-away flu epidemic. " Epidemic is a technical term that applies to pretty much any flu season, and Philadelphia Health Commissioner Donald F. Schwarz repeatedly described this one as nothing out of the ordinary.

WASHINGTON - Nearly half the 70 employees at a Ford dealership in Clarksville, Ind., have been out sick at some point in the last month. It didn't have to be that way, the boss says. "If people had stayed home in the first place, a lot of times that spread wouldn't have happened," said Marty Book, a vice president at Carriage Ford. The flu season that has struck early and hard across the United States is putting businesses and employees in a bind. In this shaky economy, many Americans are reluctant to call in sick, something that can backfire for their employers.

NEW YORK - From the Rocky Mountains to New England, hospitals are swamped with people with flu symptoms. Some medical centers are turning away visitors or making them wear face masks, and one Allentown, Pa., hospital set up a tent outside its emergency room to deal with the feverish patients. Flu season in the United States has struck early and, in many places, hard. While flu normally doesn't blanket the country until late January or February, it is already widespread in 40 states, with about 30 reporting some major hot spots.

BOSTON - Boston declared a public-health emergency Wednesday as flu season escalated and the state reported 18 flu-related deaths so far. The city is offering free flu vaccines and hopes to set up places where people can get vaccinated. The city said there had been four flu-related deaths, all elderly, since the unofficial start of the flu season Oct. 1. "The best thing you can do to protect yourself and your family is to get the flu shot," Mayor Thomas Menino said. The city was experiencing its worst flu season since at least 2009, Menino said, with about 700 confirmed cases, compared with 70 reported all of last season.

BOSTON - Boston declared a public-health emergency Wednesday as flu season struck in earnest and the state reported 18 flu-related deaths so far. The city said that there have been four flu-related deaths, all elderly residents, since the unofficial start of the flu season Oct. 1. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said that there are 700 confirmed cases of the flu, compared with 70 all of last season. Barbara Ferrer, director of the Boston public health commission, said that the 700 confirmed cases represent only those reported to the city and that thousands of other people may be ill. City, state and federal officials have all identified a Type A influenza known as H3N2 as the predominant strain reported so far this season.

A quadruple-dose flu vaccine for the elderly also provides better protection for people with HIV, researchers reported Tuesday in the first of several studies to publish results of high-dose vaccine for people with compromised immune systems. The team of researchers from Philadelphia institutions will ask a federal advisory committee to recommend high-dose vaccination for HIV-positive people, said Pablo Tebas, an infectious-diseases physician at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and senior author of the paper in Annals of Internal Medicine.