This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Influenza deaths on the rise, ILI activity leveling off

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

Influenza activity has decreased in some areas of the United States, but overall, activity remains elevated throughout the country, the CDC reported.

The proportion of outpatient visits for influenza-like illness (ILI) was 4.3% for week 3, which ended on Jan. 19. The national baseline is 2.2%. Twenty-six states and New York City saw high ILI activity and all 10 US regions also reported ILI above region-specific baseline levels.

So far this season, the rate for influenza-associated hospitalizations is 22.2 per 100,000, of which 50% were among adults aged 65 and older. The CDC recommends that all people aged 65 and older, as well as other high-risk patients, receive antiviral treatment as soon as possible after illness onset.

“It’s especially important that people 65 and older and other high-risk persons get vaccinated and also that they seek treatment quickly if they develop symptoms, including cough, fever, sore throat and body aches, regardless of their vaccination status,” the CDC said in the FluView report. “Antiviral treatment can avert serious outcomes and should begin as quickly as possible in high-risk patients.”

The proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza was above the epidemic threshold for week 3. There were also eight new influenza-associated pediatric deaths, bringing the total number of pediatric deaths to 37 for this season.

There were 11,984 specimens tested for influenza this week and 26.1% were positive for influenza. So far this season, there have been 438 cases of Influenza A (H1N1), 21,950 cases of influenza A (H3), 10,406 cases of influenza A for which subtyping was not performed and 8,168 cases of influenza B.