Flu Cases Hitting The Hardest In Northwest Idaho, Washington Top Nation With Most Reported Incidences

Idaho and Washington have more reported cases of flu than any other state this year, according to health officials.

The trend may indicate a change in the way communicable viruses spread throughout the United States.

Normally, the flu shows up first in Eastern states around Thanksgiving and spreads to the West after the first of the year.

Doctors throughout the West began reporting cases two months earlier than usual this year, said Phyllis Shoemaker, an epidemiologist at the Washington Department of Health. So far, only three states in the East have reported confirmed flu cases, she said.

Officials won’t know until spring if the states will set records, or if the flu just hit early and will die faster than normal.

“We don’t know why the pattern is different,” she said. “Something is going on, but we may never be able to pinpoint what.”

The flu showed up in Idaho before Nov. 1.

“We sure have it everywhere,” said Roy Moulton, virology section manager at the state Bureau of Laboratories. “We have it documented from stem to stern.”

To date, 74 cases of influenza Type A/Johannesburg have been confirmed in Idaho. That compares with 19 statewide during the entire 1994 flu season.

In Washington, 146 cases have been reported this year, compared to 80 in 1994.

Twenty of Washington’s cases were reported in Spokane County.

Idaho does not keep track of cases by regional health districts, said Marie Rau, public health supervisor for the Panhandle Health District.

The actual numbers of flu infections are more widespread than the numbers indicate, she said.

“Very few people are actually tested for the flu,” Rau said. “Because there’s nothing you can do to treat it, not a lot you can do to prevent it from spreading.”

The symptoms are typical of most flus - aches, fever and upper-respiratory infections. It takes most people a week to recover.

Complications most often occur in the elderly, infants and people who are already suffering medical problems.

This year’s flu shots provide protection against that type of flu plus two others that have not been reported in Idaho.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said pneumonia and flu were responsible for 6.6 percent of all deaths in the country for the week ending Dec. 2.

, DataTimes