preexisting conditions to becoming severely dehydrated and in pain. then rushed to a hospital in des moines where she later died just a few days after showing the initial signs of the flu. another tragic case in minnesota. 7-year-old rubby hansen died christmas eve. her mother believed she might have survived had she not had a preexisting medical syndrome. she had not hat jer vai syndrome. she has a seizure, yes the seizure was caused by the flu. these latest showing the flu has reached epidemic level. one of the strains this season has mutated causing this year s vaccination to be less than optimal for protection. the most common virus we re seeing cause it right now is h 3
flu season has started early and could be one of the worst in years. the virus already reached an epidemic level. it s wide spread in 36 states. so far 15 children have died because of the flu. the biggest problem, one of the most common strains of the virus. h 3 n 2 new dated. that means this season s flu vaccine is less effective than before. since october 1st, more than ate95% of the people hospitalized were the flu were infected with this flu strain. a pediatrician from university hospitals in cleveland joins me now. should you still get a flu shot? yes. the mutation means it s not going to cover the h 3 n 2.
otherwise, if you start developing any types of cold symptoms or that feeling like suddenly you ve been hit by a truck, immediately go see the doctor. one of the things we talked about is epidemic what do we have to take from that well the point there is we can pull up the visual again. when you hear the word epidemic that s a pretty heavy word. it s covering all these states we re seeing. of course there s unfortunate loss of life. children have died. yeah so we have to be concerned. there are deaths and there are preventable deaths as well. the word epidemic actually the way it s defined is you look at how many deaths are caused by flu related complications. there are two ways of reaching an epidemic level. you can have more deaths from complications. so it s hard to really gauge what this means. we have to look compared to previous years. we have more hospitalizations, that s true. but that may not what is that ratio? it s 6.8%.
year. are these numbers alarming. could would he be overreacting to the outbreak. family practice physician. professor at cornell medical college. doctor, great to have you here. is this for real? it s an epidemic. gets defined by the death rate which we reached last week which puts us in the epidemic level. you are right every year average of 33,000 a deaths a year from influenza. that can be as low as 4,000 and as high as 49,000. when you look at this match the country where you see 47 states suffering with it. god only knows how mississippi missed it. it seems like this season is worse. you hear all sorts of evidence i m sure do you from patients who say that they are just wiped out by. this worse than other years. last year we had a very mild season. if you go back to 2009-2010, that was a bad season. we are not really beyond that we are early. this is an early season. we don t know yet whether we
should be for the vaccine. how well do you think they did this year based on what we re seeing in terms of an epidemic in some places? yeah. actually, we have hit it right on target. now, remember, the vaccine, once again can t prevent each and every infection. there are some, there s a strain out there that s not included in the vaccine. we protect against three strains, but there s an additional strain. and, beyond that, there are also lots of respiratory infections of other kinds out there which of course the vaccine can t prevent. martha: yeah. in terms of epidemic obviously people hear that word and it s a frightening word. there s an epidemic level in new york city. in boston we heard about. a public health emergency. what should people s reaction to that be? i think you ought to think about getting vaccinated if you haven t yet and you may have to shop around a little bit to find the vaccine. lots of good hand hygiene, and if you do get sick,