Doctors urge vaccination as influenza upswing hits Alberta
CBC
Influenza is starting to surge in Alberta, and hospitals are getting busier as doctors brace for what could be an intense few months ahead.
The province’s flu positivity rate more than tripled to 11.5 per cent during the second week of November, from 3.4 per cent two weeks earlier.
“It's a pretty solid upswing. The season has started," said Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Alberta Hospital.
"We have had an uptick in the number of people admitted to hospital. And, as usually happens, it seems to start in Calgary first."
The flu has been responsible for 251 hospitalizations, including 158 in the Calgary zone alone, so far this season. Seventeen Albertans have been admitted to the ICU and six people have died.
The latest data shows 74 people were in hospital due to influenza as of Nov. 15, a nearly three-fold increase in two weeks.
The emergency department at the Alberta Children’s Hospital has been increasingly busy, said Dr. Stephen Freedman, a professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine.
According to Freedman, there was a lull during the recent teachers' strike followed by a rapid uptick once kids were back in school.
“Most of the children who seem to be sickest right now have either influenza or RSV," he said.
"It is typical of what we tend to see. And we're really just trying to figure out what the surge is going to be like, how much that's going to strain our system, and what the capacity demands are going to be as we move forward into the winter."
Alberta’s flu upswing is currently driven by two types of influenza A: H3N2 and H1N1.
H3N2, which can cause more severe illness, now accounts for more than half of the lab-confirmed cases this season.
The surge is playing out amid worrying international flu trends, according to Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan. Japan is experiencing an early and harsh flu season, she noted. Influenza is also hitting early in the United Kingdom.
What has complicated matters is that a new offshoot of H3N2 (known as subclade K) emerged after this season’s North American flu vaccines were formulated — and experts are worried it may not be well matched to the vaccine.
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