Better get your flu shot

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TIPS TO GUARD AGAINST THE FLU:

• The most important way to guard against the flu is to get the flu shot.
• Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water. Teach kids to wash their hands long enough by singing "Happy Birthday" twice.
• Wash your hands using soap and water after using the restroom, before eating, after contact with any bodily fluids, and after coughing or sneezing
• Use alcohol based hand sanitizers, which are actually more effective against killing germs
• Always cough or sneeze into a tissue or into your upper sleeve or elbow.
• Disinfect high-traffic areas that may collect germs.
• For more flu prevention tips, visit choa.org/flu

Source: Dr. James Fortenberry, pediatrician-in-chief, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta

SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF FLU

People who have the flu often feel some or all of these signs and symptoms:

• Fever or feeling feverish/chills
• Cough
• Sore throat
• Runny or stuffy nose
• Muscle or body aches
• Headaches
• Fatigue (very tired)
• Some people may have vomiting and diarrhea, though this is more common in children than adults.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

After three glorious days on St. Simons Island, Elizabeth Plyler arrived home with a splitting headache and a temperature that had spiked to 104.

It was Tuesday, just hours after Labor Day, so she went to school only to find herself in the nurse’s office. The headache was getting worse. At home that evening, not even a dose of Motrin would make the pain go away.

Something is seriously wrong, the 10-year-old girl told her mother.

Anna Plyler told her daughter to get into bed. But when the child stood, she threw up. It was 11 p.m. when Plyler decided to take Elizabeth to the emergency room.

Tests revealed the St. Francis fifth-grader had the flu. It was the second flu diagnosis for the Plyler family this year. Anna Plyler came down with the bug in March.

Even though flu season hasn’t officially begun, doctors say the virus is already showing up in metro Atlanta hospital emergency rooms.

So no matter your age, health experts are urging people to get their flu shots early.

Last year’s season arrived unusually early and remained intense for about 15 weeks. Nationwide, there were 164 pediatric deaths owing to the flu, the most since the H1N1 pandemic of 2009.

Including Elizabeth Plyler, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta has treated eight patients with influenza since July 2013, said Dr. James Fortenberry, the hospital's pediatrician-in-chief. Last year, the hospital was lucky. Even though the season arrived early, "We had not seen any patients with influenza by this point in 2012," he said.

“We do not know when flu season will begin, so it is important to get your flu shots as soon as possible to be protected for the season,” he said in response to emailed questions. “Now is the time to get vaccinated so that your family will have immunity when the flu is really flying about. It takes approximately two weeks for you to get immunity once receiving the vaccine.”

On average, about five to 20 people out of 100 will be diagnosed with a flu infection each year, said Dr. Andrea Shane, medical director of epidemiology and infection prevention at CHOA. Approximately 200,000 people will be hospitalized each year due to the flu. And as many as 49,000 could die each year from complications related to the flu.

"An influenza season can start slow or fast, can be mild or severe and one or more strains can dominate so there are different kinds of viruses circulating at any one point," said Barbara Reynolds, spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Due to the recent government shutdown, Reynolds said, the CDC will not be able to track U.S. illnesses.

“We do laboratory work to try to determine what strains may be circulating and that laboratory work can’t be done,” she said. “When we don’t have that information, we can’t help decide what strains should be in the next year’s vaccine.

“If we discover a problem, we will gear up to respond,” she said. “The problem is we’re just not going to be able to find them as early as we normally would and that include influenza, too. We’re concerned because there will be blind spots out there, and we won’t know what’s happening.”

Of the agency’s approximately 13,000 employees, 9,000 are on furlough because of the shutdown.

Each year, Fortenberry said the U.S. Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, considers the WHO recommendations and makes a final decision regarding composition of seasonal flu vaccine for the United States.

There will be two different vaccines available this year for the general public. The first contains three virus strains know as trivalent and the second contains four strains, also known as quadrivalent. This is the first time a quadrivalent flu vaccine will be available. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics is not endorsing one vaccine over another.

“People should not wait to receive the quadrivalent vaccine if a trivalent is available,” Fortenberry said. “It is more important to get vaccinated as soon as possible.”

In addition, kids like Elizabeth who had already had the flu should still get vaccinated, he said.

“There are several circulating strains of flu viruses during the flu season, and just because your child has one strain of the flu does not mean that he or she will be protected against all the others,” Fortenberry said. “The best way to make sure that you and your child are protected is for everyone over six months old to get a flu vaccine.”

Elizabeth spent four of the five days she was in the hospital in the intensive care unit, her mother said.

“She had to be on oxygen,” Anna Plyler said. “Her blood pressure was dangerously low for two days.”

Plyler said that Elizabeth had the flu once before but it was nothing like this.