Deadly flu season peaking late

COLUMBUS – A nine-year-old Marion County boy with asthma has become the fifth child in Ohio to die because of the flu in what is becoming a rough flu season statewide.

READ MORE: In The Columbus Dispatch

Despite the relatively mild 2016-2017 winter so far, Ohio is close to matching the number of children — six — who died during the 2014-15 flu season. One child died last flu season and none in 2013-2014. Adult flu deaths are not reported in Ohio, and health officials could not release whether the children who died had received a flu vaccine.

The flu season was slow to get underway but is making up for lost time.

“It looks like influenza’s peaking late this year and it may go well into April and maybe even May,” said Dr. Dennis Flynn, medical director for Molina Healthcare Ohio.

Flynn says there have also been approximately 2,000 flu-related hospitalizations so far since the flu season began in October.


The Marion County boy who died had asthma that was exacerbated by flu, a Nationwide Children’s Hospital spokeswoman told the newspaper.

Dr. Mike Patrick, an emergency-medicine physician at Nationwide, said children with asthma, or with a history of being premature, with heart or lung disease or with a neuromuscular disorder, could be more vulnerable.

“If you have a kid with those risk factors, what you want to pay attention to is any difficulty breathing and if there’s any sign of trouble, see someone right away,” Patrick said.

But Patrick cautioned parents against panicking if their child gets the flu. Severe complications are rare, he said. Healthy individuals typically can weather the flu by controlling symptoms, he said.

“Pediatric deaths are very unfortunate, and we are sad to see them, so we are trying in every way to help people realize the flu is still out there and there are ways to protect yourself,” said Melanie Amato, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Health.

Amato said it’s not too late to get the flu vaccine. The state has restarted its flu campaign and will continue to spread the word about prevention in radio and television ads. Local health departments are turning to social media.


Complicating matters, along with the usual number of common colds, is a strain of norovirus affecting central Ohioans (see illustration). Norovirus is often called the “stomach flu” by sufferers.

Flynn says the tipoff for a patient who is not sure if they are coming down with the flu or a cold is the rapid onset of a fever, which comes “bang out of the box” in the case of flu, along with a cough.

He says anyone who believes they are suffering from the flu should get to a hospital or doctor because medications that can be prescribed to treat the symptoms are only effective for a few days after the onset.