Swine ’09.
The name may sound like a pork lover’s bumper sticker, but six years ago, “the swine flu” was the microscopic menace of students and parents alike.
This winter, that menace goes by another alias — H3N2.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s influenza surveillance report, eight of eight regions in Tennessee recorded widespread, flu-related illnesses with 21.8 percent of respiratory specimens tested positive for the flu.
East Tennessee Children’s Hospital reported seeing 442 children with flu-like symptoms within the past month.
Additionally, the CDC has recorded that three of the 26 deaths from influenza among children have occurred in Tennessee.
Dr. Kelly Moore, director of the Immunization Program at the Tennessee Department of Health, however, maintains that H3N2’s pattern is not unique to the East Tennessee area. She instead attributes the virus’s prevalence to a drifted strain which was not adequately protected by the current flu vaccine.
“What happened this year, but fortunately doesn’t happen too often, is the strain that is now the dominant strain didn’t really show up on the scene until March,” Moore said. “It was just a few cases around the world, but when it started picking up steam in the Southern Hemisphere, this particular drifted strain really became dominant, and we thought ‘Great, it’s too late to change the strains in the vaccine. We will just have to wait and see what happens.’”
Moore further explained that a global panel of medical experts predict the next virulent strain each February to identify how the appropriate vaccines will be created, a task Moore likened to shooting a bull’s-eye on a constantly moving target.
“Right now, we have to make a vaccine that targets part of the virus that can change very easily and changes all the time, and that’s the best target,” she said. “You have to refocus your aim every season.”
Yet, Moore said she remains optimistic about advances in influenza vaccinations since H3N2’s last visit in 2007, emphasizing the current research’s goal to formulate a universal flu vaccine.
“In my line of work we call that the ‘holy grail’ of flu vaccines, and we’re still searching for it,” she said.
In the Tennessee Department of Health’s checklist for flu prevention, methods can be broken down into three lines of defense: vaccination, healthy habits and more recently, antiviral medications for freshly-infected patients.
Tamiflu, one of several antiviral medications, was a key element in restoring Ashley Reesman, junior in nursing, back to health when she was struck with the flu as a freshman.
“I started my day not feeling well with a low-grade fever and by the end of the day my fever was 101 degrees,” Reesman said, recalling her own experience with the flu. “I had chills, a sore throat, a headache and my ears hurt. I went to the doctor the next day and he gave me Tamiflu, which helped me feel better pretty quickly. But it still took me probably a whole week to recover.”
Reesman ultimately concurs that the best line of defense is everyday healthy habits.
“Take care of yourself,” she said. “Get enough sleep, eat well, exercise, drink lots of water,” Reesman said. “The best way to combat this virus is with a healthy immune system. The better you take care of your body, the better your body will take care of you.”
For Moore, these habits along with vaccination can be the difference between a two-day illness and time spent in the hospital.
“The person who is the highest risk for flu is the person who didn’t get a vaccine, and even a vaccine that doesn’t work as well as we would like is better than nothing,” she said. “That is only thing I can guarantee.”
To view the 2014 virus compared with previous strains, visit the CDC’s website here: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/
Think you may have the flu? Call the Student Health Center appointment line at (865) 974 – 3648.
