COLUMBUS, Ohio – State health officials say six times as many people have been hospitalized with the flu this year than last year, partly because the vaccine doesn’t work very well against a prevalent strain.
During the week that ended Dec. 20, Ohio had 935 new confirmed hospitalizations related to the flu, over 400 more than the week before, Health Department public information officer Melanie Amato said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had warned that the 2014-15 flu season might be severe because the predominant H3N2 strain is more severe and this year’s flu vaccine is not matched to two-thirds of the H3N2 viruses circulating, reducing its effectiveness, Amato said.
There have been 1,919 such hospitalizations this year, compared with 331 during the same period a year ago (see chart above), when the H3N2 strain was prevalent, Amato said. She says 177 of the hospitalizations have been children age four or younger and 929 have been adults age 65 or older.
Two years ago, when H3N2 was predominant, Amato says the state had 851 hospitalizations at this point in the year and the total number of hospitalizations for the entire 2012-13 flu season was over 5,000.
Amato says vaccination remains the best protection against the flu but other ways to avoid getting or spreading the disease include hand washing, covering coughs and sneezes, avoiding touching eyes, nose and mouth and staying home when sick until fever-free for 24 hours.
Symptoms of influenza can include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue.