Photo of flu vaccine.
The early kickoff of flu season in Washington state— resulting from a rise in people reporting influenza-like illnesses — hasn’t affected Lewis County at the same level as other parts of the state — so far, according to Lewis County Public Health and Human Services.
While data from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) point to 4.4-percent of Washington state residents going to the doctor for influenza-like conditions during the first week of December, which far exceeds the state’s 1.5-percent baseline in that category, the situation doesn’t appear as dire from a local perspective.
Lewis County’s Health Officer Dr. Rachel Wood said that while the numbers are “very slowly creeping up” in the county, “we don’t have anything above the epidemic threshold.”
Though Wood didn’t provide any specific numbers within her area of jurisdiction, she said she is constantly monitoring reports from physicians’ offices and laboratories.
“If a medical provider orders an influenza test, we look at the percent of those influenza tests that are ordered that are positive. We watch closely as the percentage starts to go up,” said Wood. “What I can tell you is that there’s nothing unusual going on in Lewis County.”
She advised that it isn’t too late to get a flu shot, which she added is “the best thing to do” in terms of prevention. Wood recommends that everyone wash their hands often and avoid touching their nose, mouth or eyes as an extra precaution.
She also urges people to immediately dispose of their tissues after blowing their nose and making sure they clean their hands afterward.
As for those who have already come down with one of multiple influenza-like viruses, she prescribes using their sick days to stay home from work and rest.
Most common non-flu viral infections include rhinovirus — the predominant cause of the common cold — and the respiratory syncytial virus, which causes cold-like symptoms and can reportedly be serious for infants and older adults.
“For anybody who’s had influenza, you just don’t feel very well. Some people have to go to bed and some people have a cough that persists and people who are more vulnerable healthwise, they may have to go to a doctor,” added Wood.
When commenting on the strength of the influenza vaccine, she conceded that it may not be as effective as the measles vaccine or the hepatitis A vaccine. The influenza vaccine’s potency, said Wood, is measured in how it reduces an individual’s likelihood of visiting a doctor, being hospitalized or even dying in certain cases.
“Sometimes people ask about if the current influenza vaccine matches the virus that’s going around. The people who develop the vaccine every year, they are looking at what’s happening in the southern hemisphere because they either have their winter before us or after us,” she continued. “They’re doing some matching up for proteins for influenza A and proteins for influenza B antibodies we want to put in the current year’s vaccine. But we don’t (yet) know how good the match is.”
The information will reportedly be released by the CDC sometime in late February.
In the meantime, Wood and her colleagues will be keeping track of epidemic thresholds, which change annually. They will also be checking for influenza-like outbreaks at long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes.
To date, the Washington State Department of Health reports five confirmed influenza deaths — none of which have occurred in Lewis County.
