The Kent County Health Department continues to advise residents not to ignore early signs of flu like symptoms. Officials recently identified a strain of influenza that sickened approximately 120 people.
There were three confirmed cases of flu, linked to the H1-N1 strain… but that doesn’t mean it’s an early start to flu season.
More than 100 people were sickened earlier this month following a convention in Grand Rapids. The Kent County Health Department says it began receiving phone calls and emails from people in at least 25 states who had attended the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Associations convention. It was in Grand Rapids, the week of August 12th. Some testing was done narrowing the scope to five people, of which three tests were confirmed as positive for the h1 n1 strain by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services on August 23rd. So what does this mean for the Kent County Community?
Here’s Kent County health’s epidemiologist, Brian Hartl.
“We really don’t know what it means. We just know that we had a number of people in our community that got sick with influenza type illness with the h1 n1 strain from 2009. That might just be an aberration, someone coming in that was already sick, or it could potentially indicate an early start to our influenza season.”
H1N1 is the same flu that emerged in 2009 and has been circulating ever since. H1 N1 has been part of the flu vaccine since 2010.
“Flu is unpredictable. We never know when It is going to peak or when we’ll see the most activity in our community. Typically it peaks between January and March over the last couple of years. I think it just reminds people that generally precautions are always good for any type of illness, you know, washing your hands, staying home when you’re sick, not sharing these things with your friends, getting vaccinations. You, it’s not too early to get a vaccination. Never too early to start thinking about that vaccination.”
Hartl emphasizes staying home if you’re not well. Symptoms include cough, fever, body aches and sometimes extreme fatigue. For more information you can visit the Kent County health Department’s website: “stick it to the flu.com”.
