Influenza

Subterms

    Latest story

    175 Shares18 Views

    Flu Killed 25 Children in New York This Season, the Most in Many Years

    by

    Amid declining vaccination rates, the 2024-25 influenza season exacted a heavy toll, with 216 pediatric deaths nationwide.Amid dropping vaccination rates, 25 children in New York State died from influenza during the 2024-25 flu season — more than in any recent flu season, state health authorities said on Wednesday.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that more than 47 million people nationwide caught the flu between fall and spring and that more than 600,000 have been hospitalized. The hospitalization rate for flu is the highest it has been in 15 years.A number of factors have probably contributed to influenza’s heavy toll. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, more people have chosen not to be vaccinated against the seasonal flu. And some researchers believe that the mix of strains circulating this year tend to be associated with more intense flu seasons.The C.D.C. has attributed 216 pediatric deaths nationwide to the flu this season, a number that is expected to climb before the end of the season, which is receding. More than 10 percent of those deaths occurred in New York State, which is home to less than 6 percent of the nation’s children.Of the 25 children who died from flu, only one was vaccinated, the state health commissioner, Dr. James V. McDonald, noted. Five were too young to be vaccinated, he said in a statement. The flu vaccine is not approved for children younger than 6 months.The decline in flu vaccinations reflects a rising tide of distrust of the scientific establishment, which has left many people questioning the safety or effectiveness of vaccines. Before the pandemic, the share of Americans who received an annual flu shot had been slowly climbing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 100 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      They Caught the Flu, and Never Came Home

      by

      The virus leads to an estimated 36,000 deaths in the United States each season — many of them so sudden that families are left reeling.Lauren Caggiano had felt sick for days by the time she tested positive for the flu in an emergency room on a February afternoon. Hours later, she was in the intensive care unit. By 4 in the morning, she was on a ventilator.Ms. Caggiano, a paralegal who lived in Oceanside, Calif., doted on her two dogs and had recently become a grandmother, died two days later. She was 49.“You don’t really think, if you’re in decent health, that’s going to be what gets you,” her son, Brandon Salgado, said.Many people recover from a bout of flu within a few days or a week. But every year, the virus still kills more than 36,000 people across the United States and sends hundreds of thousands to the hospital. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that this flu season has been especially severe.Some of those who died were at greater risk for getting seriously ill because of underlying conditions or their age. Others, like Ms. Caggiano, were otherwise healthy before their infections. Some had not received the flu shot, which reduces but does not eliminate the risk of death. Some were hospitalized for weeks; others felt ill for only days before they died.All of their deaths came as a shock to the people who knew them.A Swift DeclinePart of what stunned Mr. Salgado was just how quickly his mother died.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      A Bird Flu Pandemic Would Be One of the Most Foreseeable Catastrophes in History

      by

      Almost five years after Covid blew into our lives, the main thing standing between us and the next global pandemic is luck. And with the advent of flu season, that luck may well be running out.The H5N1 avian flu, having mutated its way across species, is raging out of control among the nation’s cattle, infecting roughly a third of the dairy herds in California alone. Farmworkers have so far avoided tragedy, as the virus has not yet acquired the genetic tools to spread among humans. But seasonal flu will vastly increase the chances of that outcome. As the colder weather drives us all indoors to our poorly ventilated houses and workplaces, we will be undertaking an extraordinary gamble that the nation is in no way prepared for.All that would be more than bad enough, but we face these threats gravely hobbled by the Biden administration’s failure — one might even say refusal — to respond adequately to this disease or to prepare us for viral outbreaks that may follow. And the United States just registered its first known case of an exceptionally severe strain of Mpox.As bad as the Biden administration has been on pandemic prevention, of course, it’s about to be replaced by something far worse. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s vast public health agency, has already stated he would not prioritize research or vaccine distribution were we to face another pandemic. Kennedy may even be hastening its arrival through his advocacy for raw milk, which can carry high levels of the H5N1 virus and is considered a possible vector for its transmission.We might be fine. Viruses don’t always manage to adapt to new species, despite all the opportunities. But if there is a bird flu pandemic soon, it will be among the most foreseeable catastrophes in history.Devastating influenza pandemics arise throughout the ages because the virus is always looking for a way in, shape shifting to jump among species in ever novel forms. Flu viruses have a special trick: If two different types infect the same host — a farmworker with regular flu who also gets H5N1 from a cow — they can swap whole segments of their RNA, potentially creating an entirely new and deadly virus that has the ability to spread among humans. It’s likely that the 1918 influenza pandemic, for example, started as a flu virus of avian origin that passed through a pig in eastern Kansas. From there it likely infected its first human victim before circling the globe on a deadly journey that killed more people than World War I.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      The Disease Detectives Trying to Keep the World Safe From Bird Flu

      by

      As Dr. Sreyleak Luch drove to work the morning of Feb. 8, through busy sunbaked streets in Cambodia’s Mekong river delta, she played the overnight voice messages from her team. The condition of a 9-year-old boy she had been caring for had deteriorated sharply, and he had been intubated, one doctor reported. What, she wondered, could make the child so sick, so fast?“And then I just thought: H5N1,” she recalled. “It could be bird flu.”When she arrived at the airy yellow children’s ward at the provincial hospital in Kratie, she immediately asked the child’s father if the family had had contact with any sick or dead poultry. He admitted that their rooster had been found dead a few days before and that the family had eaten it.Dr. Luch told her colleagues her theory. Their responses ranged from dubious to incredulous: A human case of avian influenza had never been reported in their part of eastern Cambodia. They warned her that if she set off the bird flu warning system, many senior government officials might get involved. She risked looking foolish, or worse.Anxious but increasingly certain, Dr. Luch phoned the local public health department, located just across the street. Within minutes, a team arrived to collect a sample from the child, Virun Roeurn, for testing in a lab.By then, Virun’s distraught parents had lost faith in the hospital. They demanded that he be sent by ambulance to the capital, Phnom Penh. His flu swab sample traveled with him.Virun died on the journey. At 8 p.m., Cambodia’s National Public Health Laboratory confirmed Dr. Luch’s suspicion: He had died of highly pathogenic avian influenza.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More