The full story can be found on the Seattle Mama Doc homepage:
Influenza virus causes “the flu.” It’s a crummy cold that spreads easily causing high fever, body aches, runny nose, terrible cough, and rarely it can cause vomiting and diarrhea, too. The flu isn’t the “stomach flu.” It’s deadlier than that. It’s more dangerous for babies and young children, and for the elderly. It’s also particularly dangerous for those with asthma, diabetes, and people with neurologic or immune problems. This post is a bit of a plea: people are dying from the flu and there are ways we can potentially save others’ lives. Click through to read 5 myths about the flu and watch a 3-min interview I did for HLN television yesterday.
The bad news: We’re having a bad flu season. More people have the flu this year than at any time last year. This is early—flu usually peaks in Feb or March. The most dominate strain of flu that’s moving around the US is the strain called H3N2—it’s known to cause more serious disease. As of today, we have over 80% of our states reporting widespread circulating levels of flu. Here in Washington many people have been hospitalized from complications of the flu. Further, in Washington 6 people have died, one of them a child under the age of 12. A healthy 17 year-old died in Minnesota just this week. Flu is not just your “common cold,” it can be far worse. Eighteen children have already died this season.
Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson is a pediatrician and author of Seattle Mama Doc, a Seattle Children’s Hospital blog.
