Flu cases on the rise in Canada
Posted Jan 13, 2017 06:18:06 AM.
Last Updated Jan 13, 2017 07:11:09 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Infectious disease experts say the number of cases of the flu is increasing as the season progresses, and there’s no telling how soon the annual scourge will begin to taper off.
The Public Health Agency of Canada’s FluWatch report shows there were one-thousand-948 lab-confirmed cases of influenza in the final week of December.
By the end of 2016, a total of almost 62-hundred lab-confirmed cases of flu had been detected since the current season started in the early fall.
But those numbers provide only a snapshot of the current influenza season thus far, as most people who come down with flu don’t seek medical treatment and aren’t tested to confirm the diagnosis.
Dr. Danuta Skowronski with the B-C Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver says none of the figures should be interpreted as absolute.
The predominant influenza strain circulating in Canada this year is A-H-3-N-2, which can cause a particularly nasty form of flu that tends to target the elderly.
As of December 31st, almost 900 Canadians had been hospitalized due to influenza and 20 had died.
Those aged 65 and older accounted for two-thirds of hospitalizations and 80 per cent of the deaths.
