Flu season starts delayed due to mild winter

Flu season starts delayed due to mild winter

09/02/2014

Now she starts again, the time of the handkerchiefs, the time with cough and cold. The flu season has begun. Although the mild winter has slowed down their start this year significantly, but he can spare them us not.

Started flu season in Bavaria
Now it has started: the flu season. Because of the mild winter, however, it starts in some places significantly delayed, including in Bavaria. According to the information provided by the Bavarian State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL), it really started this week. With just under 120 new flu illnesses, more than twice as many cases were counted as in the previous week. The health authorities report to the LGL weekly the infection numbers. In the past few years, the peak had already been reached or exceeded at the beginning of February.

Significantly delayed compared to previous years
„We have a rather late year this year, the weather certainly had an influence“, said Claudia Schuller, spokeswoman for the LGL to the news agency dpa. „But now we have started correctly. Now it goes slowly upwards.“ Compared to previous years, the flu time has even been postponed significantly. So it started in the winters of 2010 and 2012 already in early December and reached its peak at the beginning of February. The Bavarian health authorities have reported 235 new infections since the beginning of the year. In the same period last year, there were already 2,156 influenza cases, the LGL spokeswoman said.

Two years ago, influenza wave started similarly late
The flu season two years ago, however, started at a similar late stage as this year and the course from the winter of 2011/2012 is similar to this year's number curve. The flu epidemic was not that bad at the time either. Schuller did not dare to make any prognosis as to whether this year's bad wave of influenza will be missed. As a rule, the season lasts until the end of March and then this year the climax can be reached.

Flu is not a flu infection
In contrast to the so-called flu infection, influenza is not a harmless disease. The flu (influenza) comes abruptly and sounds only slowly. It comes to symptoms such as fever, headache and body aches and chills. Unlike a cold that only affects the upper respiratory tract, influenza affects the whole body. Sufferers often have fever of up to 41 degrees and joint and muscle pain. In children, flu can sometimes cause atypical symptoms such as sudden nausea, diarrhea and itchy rash. Parents should always consult a doctor with their children. Influenza patients usually feel very weak and miserable. The body may need several weeks to recover from the illness and regain strength.

Vaccination for people from risk groups
The LGL warns on its website: „For people with underlying conditions, flu can be a life-threatening complication.“ The Standing Vaccination Commission (STIKO) at the Robert Koch Institute recommends vaccination primarily for the elderly over 60 years of age, chronic patients with underlying conditions such as diabetes, asthma or cardiovascular disease, medical staff and pregnant women from the second trimester of pregnancy, because these are among the risk groups. As a rule, the costs are covered by the health insurance companies. Basically, however, with the flu vaccine pros and cons weigh against each other. Since the body takes about 14 days to build up the protection after a vaccine, a vaccine could be useful anyway only before the onset of a disease. (Ad)