☠ This Year’s Deadly Flu ☠
The 2017–2018 flu season began on October 1st, 2017 and continues to progress today. Influenza activity is widespread and remains high across the state of Texas this season. As of February 3rd, 23,560 specimens have tested positive for influenza (Texas Department of State Health Services, 2018).
Stockton Cobb’s tweet on February 18th in New York City, New York.
Influenza Epidemic
This year’s flu vaccination has not been effective due to the increasing rates of bacterial infected persons. 2,897 deaths from this year’s flu epidemic in the state of Texas have been reported (Texas Deparment of State Health Services, 2018). The majority of the population has no immunity to these viruses allowing for large proportions of persons getting infected. In Travis County alone, the death toll has reached 34 as of February 12th (Austin American Statesman, 2018).
Statewide influenza activity during the first official week of the flu season, week ending October 07, 2017.
Current statewide influenza activity for week ending February 03, 2018.
Flu Vaccine Effectiveness
The number of influenza vaccinations administered annually in the United States is the highest than all other vaccinations because it is highly recommended for any individual six months or older (Ribaudo, 2017). The influenza vaccine is reformulated each flu season because the viruses rapidly mutate. These changes impair the ability of the immune system to recognize the virus, leading to incomplete immunity. Global surveillance and monitoring organizations determine which viral strains are most likely to match the viruses that will circulate during the following flu season (Ribaudo, 2017). Influenza viruses are subject to continual antigenic drift which may cause vaccinations to be ineffective (Paules, 2018). Seasonal influenza vaccines are reviewed biannually and updated periodically to ensure continued effectiveness of the vaccines. The influenza vaccine is the best protection against getting the flu.
This flu season has had record high numbers of laboratory confirmed influenza outbreaks and higher-than-average numbers of hospitalizations and deaths (Paules, 2018). During flu seasons that the influenza vaccines are well matched to circulating viruses, estimates of vaccine effectiveness range from 40% to 60% (Paules, 2018). Vaccine effectiveness can also depend on prior influenza exposure and host factors such as age and coexisting conditions.
The effectiveness of this season’s flu vaccine is about 36% (CDC,2018).
How does this compare to the 1918 Spanish Flu that swept the world?
The Spanish Flu pandemic at the end of World War One from 1918–1920 sickened a third of the world’s population and killed perhaps as many as 100 million people (Quick, 2018). This was the most devastating season of flu in modern history. The reported illness was extremely sudden and highly contagious to others. Many people stayed home and banks, offices, and telegraph services were temporarily closed to avoid exposure and transmission.
Public health measures adopted by political authorities included disinfection with phenolic oil. Travelers, their baggage, mail, and railways were disinfected. Many public spaces like theaters, cafeterias, and churches were also disinfected. In some Spanish cities, streets were cleaned with a mixture of water and sodium hypochlorite, and spitting was banned. In Madrid, the Congress and the Senate buildings were disinfected with phenolic oil (Trilla, 2008).
The Spanish Flu spread around the world rapidly because at this time, there were no drugs or vaccines to treat the killer flu strain. Citizens were ordered to wear masks to prevent catching the highly contagious flu.
In just one year, 1918, the average life expectancy in America plummeted by a dozen years (History, 2010).
More U.S. soldiers died from the 1918 flu than were killed in battle during the war. Forty percent of the U.S. Navy was hit with the flu, while 36 percent of the Army became ill, and troops moving around the world in crowded ships and trains helped to spread the killer virus (History, 2010). Complicating matters was the fact that World War I had left parts of America with a shortage of physicians and other health workers. And of the available medical personnel in the U.S., many came down with the flu themselves.
The Spanish Flu pandemic lasted two years and wiped out 3% of the world’s entire population (History, 2018). The Spanish Flu is the deadliest pandemic in history killing more people than the Black Plague, Ebola outbreaks in Africa, and AIDS epidemic.
H1N1 virus is the strain of influenza that was responsible for the Spanish Flu pandemic, recent Swine Flu pandemic in 2009, and is accountable for 25.76% of positively tested influenza type A flu specimens in Texas this season. The severe H3N2 virus accounts for the 74.24%. Together, H1N1 and H3N2 make-up 84.71% of all influenza specimens. H3N2 is severe because it causes rapid deaths and the body is not yet immune to it due to people having less exposure. When the same flu strikes repeatedly, people build immunity to it. This year’s flu season is intense because the H1N1 and H3N2 are adapting quickly by constantly changing their surface proteins (National Geographic, 2018).
The Power of Seven
- Leadership that is courageous, decisive, and moves ahead, that will not dither or deny, but that really rises to the occasion and acts quickly
- The need to build the basic public health abilities that are able to prevent and quickly respond to
- Focus on prevention — on good hygiene, on mosquito control
- Understand communication — Social media, for example, is a double-edged sword. It spreads falsehoods and it also helps you understand how people are thinking about it.
- Innovation — we need new vaccines, new diagnostics. We also need a even better early warning system. We’ve been able to reduce hurricane deaths 95 percent in the last 50 years with good early warnings.
- Investments — the calculation is that if we put together the health systems part of it, the innovation part of it and the emergency response, that’s about $1 per person per year (Quick, 2018)
- Everything that we’ve seen tells us that we will fall back into complacency unless we really have strong advocates and a mobilized and engaged citizenry in keeping the investments and the work happening between outbreaks
**From Jonathan Quick’s book, he wants readers to conclude that the threat of major epidemics and pandemics is real. The scientific and public health community know what to do, but we’re not moving fast enough with enough leadership and enough resources to protect us.
Available flu vaccines should still be taken because the end of this fatal flu season is not near!
If you have already been affected by the flu this year, that doesn’t mean you are guaranteed to not get it again before the season is over. You can get the flu twice in one season because you can get a different strain.
The flu shot is readily available at a low-cost or is potentially free. Many local health services also have incentives for getting the flu shot.
For example, at my mom’s job, if she gets the flu shot on her lunch break, she gets to go home for the rest of the day with pay as an incentive.
The following website allows you to input your zipcode and shows all results for locations offering the flu vaccination: https://www.dshs.texas.gov/txflu/flu-locator.shtm
History.com Staff. (2010). Spanish Flu. Retrieved February 24, 2018, from http://www.history.com/topics/1918-flu-pandemic
Huber, M. (2018, February 21). Flu Death Toll in Travis County hits 39 this Week. Austin American Statesman . Retrieved February 23, 2018, from http://www.statesman.com/news/local/latest-travis-county-flu-death-toll-hits-officials-say/mZGkwUeuapawiHppNwZkbN/
Living on Earth / World Media Foundation / Public Radio International. (2018, February 15). The End of Epidemics. Retrieved February 24, 2018, from https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=18-P13-00007&segmentID=6
Paules, C. I., Sullivan, S. G., Subbarao, K., & Fauci, A. S. (2018). Chasing Seasonal Influenza — The Need for a Universal Influenza Vaccine. New England Journal of Medicine,378(1), 7–9. doi:10.1056/nejmp1714916
Quick, J. D., & Fryer, B. (2018). The end of epidemics: the looming threat to humanity and how to stop it. New York: St. Martins Press.
Ribaudo, A. S., & Hayney, M. S. (2017). Influenza vaccine formulation and effectiveness. Journal of the American Pharmacists Association,57(5), 637–639. doi:10.1016/j.japh.2017.08.002
Ryan, L. (2018, January 31). Why Is This Flu Season So Deadly? Retrieved February 24, 2018, from https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/flu-season-2018-deaths-peak.html
Salzberg, S. (2009). Faculty of 1000 evaluation for Origins and evolutionary genomics of the 2009 swine-origin H1N1 influenza A epidemic. F1000 — Post-publication peer review of the biomedical literature. doi:10.3410/f.1162111.622575
Texas Department of Health and Human Services; Texas Influenza Surveillance Report
Trilla, A., Trilla, G., & Daer, C. (2008, September 01). 1918 “Spanish Flu” in Spain | Clinical Infectious Diseases | Oxford Academic.
What Makes This Flu Season So Bad. (2018, January 17). Retrieved February 24, 2018, from https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/flu-influenza-h3n2-virus-outbreak-vaccine-spd/
Wilham, K. (n.d.). Our Rich History: Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918–19 — the granddaddy of all flu outbreaks in NKY. Retrieved February 24, 2018, from http://www.nkytribune.com/2016/09/our-rich-history-spanish-flu-pandemic-of-1918-19-the-granddaddy-of-all-flu-outbreaks-in-nky/
