The Flu: Everything You Need to Know This Season (BLOG)

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuQRQ57aPjziOBOXJgWNQmysyUF1-2jmm6JYd7ep1Q9pfN1Od_7DsERdVfi8SF0zpOkeVbuemAAN5B3xYUhHn4oZbvGt4NvEG04oSZiuCk_spIYULlb3PIOblNoKJyw4uuscN0wroqrnE/s1600/GTY_flu_kab_140113_16x9_992.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuQRQ57aPjziOBOXJgWNQmysyUF1-2jmm6JYd7ep1Q9pfN1Od_7DsERdVfi8SF0zpOkeVbuemAAN5B3xYUhHn4oZbvGt4NvEG04oSZiuCk_spIYULlb3PIOblNoKJyw4uuscN0wroqrnE/s1600/GTY_flu_kab_140113_16x9_992.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.464000701904297px; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;">"It's just the flu."</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.464000701904297px; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;">I can't tell you how many times I've heard that expression. Yet each time I hear it, I cringe.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.464000701904297px; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;">"Just the flu" is responsible every year for hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. It is a disease that makes those of us who work in public health very nervous.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.464000701904297px; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;">The only real certainty is that there will be a flu season each winter. Other than that, there are many unknowns: When will it start? What strains will be circulating? Who will be at greatest risk? How severe will it be? How well will the vaccine work?</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.464000701904297px; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;">This year's flu season is now in full swing so we have some of the answers to such questions.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.464000701904297px; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;">We know that the number of flu cases started to spike first in the southeastern United States. Visits for flu-like illness started to rise in December and have continued to rise and spread. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/" style="color: #005490; text-decoration: none;">20 states have high levels of flu activity</a> and all regions of the country are now seeing flu cases. The website, Google flu trends, which tends to be more up to date, reports that <a href="http://www.google.org/flutrends/us/#US" style="color: #005490; text-decoration: none;">33 states are seeing high levels of flu</a>.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.464000701904297px; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;">More than 90 percent of disease is caused this year by the H1N1 strain of the flu virus. This is the same strain that also caused the so-called swine flu pandemic in 2009. It has been included in all flu vaccines since then.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.464000701904297px; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;">H1N1 tends to hit adults between the ages of 18 and 64 harder than other flu strains. But groups traditionally at high risk - the very young, the elderly, those with chronic diseases, pregnant women - haven't been spared.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.464000701904297px; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;">Although the flu season is in full swing, it often continues into March. It is too soon to know how severe this flu season will be, how long it will last and how well the vaccine will work. We can only tell these sorts of things when the flu season has ended.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.464000701904297px; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;">The best flu prevention? Get vaccinated. Flu vaccination is recommended for everyone older than 6 months. Getting vaccinated does two things: It reduces your chance of getting the flu and helps protect those around you from getting it by creating something called "herd immunity." This means that even those who don't get vaccinated are protected because the virus has fewer ways of spreading in a population of mostly vaccinated people.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.464000701904297px; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;">There are more vaccine choices this year than ever before. One shot will cover you for four strains of flu, rather than the usual three. There is a high-strength vaccine specially developed for the elderly, a group for whom standard vaccines have typically been insufficiently effective. There is a nasal spray vaccine for people 50 and younger. There is now even a vaccine made without the use of eggs for anyone with egg allergies.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.464000701904297px; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;">You can also prevent the spread of the flu by covering your coughs and sneezes with a tissue or with your elbow. Washing your hands frequently with soap and water for a full 20 seconds also helps gets rid of those viruses. If there's no sink around, alcohol-based hand sanitizer is a suitable substitute.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.464000701904297px; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;">And if you're sick, stay home. Set an example so maybe others will do the same.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.464000701904297px; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;">And please, whatever you do, don't say "it's just the flu."</div><div style="background-color: white; margin-top: 11px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.464000701904297px;">http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/flu-everything-know-season-110035414--abc-news-wellness.html</span></span></div></div>

The Flu: Everything You Need to Know This Season (BLOG)

"It's just the flu." I can't tell you how many times I've heard that expression. Yet each time I hear it, I cringe. ...

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