Unusual flu season winds down in the Interlake

DANIEL PAQUET / FLICKR

Health officials say although this year’s flu shot did little to protect people from the flu it could still protect individuals from other strains of the influenza virus.  

By Austin Grabish, The Selkirk Record

Unusually high numbers of patients with the flu kept health care workers in the Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority on their feet this flu season, but recent health indicators say this year’s flu season may finally be trickling down.

Hospitals across the country saw a spike in the number of patients with

H3N2, this flu season’s most common type of influenza.

The virus hit nursing homes in the Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority especially hard. A whopping total of 10 H3N2 outbreaks took place at long-term care facilities throughout the region.

“That would certainly be the most that have occurred in the 10 plus years that I’ve been involved in outbreak control in the region,” said Dr. Tim Hilderman, medical officer of health for the IERHA.

Hilderman said in a typical year the Health Authority would see maybe four or five influenza outbreaks in personal care homes.

Three residents living in Interlake nursing homes died from the virus, but health officials thought there would have been more deaths from the illness.

“That would be slightly lower than what we would expect,” Hilderman said.

Hilderman said all ten of the outbreaks in the personal care homes have finished, and he said the flu season is looking like it’s on a downward trend.

“The influenza A wave that we’re seeing across Manitoba is really starting to decrease,” Hilderman said.

And latest flu reports posted online by the Public Health Agency of Canada indicate the peak of the influenza season may have passed.

“It’s all settled back down to baseline now,” Hilderman said.

Hilderman said health officials don’t quite know just how the H3N2 virus compares to other strands of influenza just yet, but said one thing remains certain: this year’s flu vaccine wasn’t a match for the H3N2 virus.

“We didn’t see a good vaccine effectiveness,” Hilderman said.

A Canadian study found this year’s flu vaccine offered little to no protection against the H3N2 virus, said the Public Health Agency of Canada, in its latest weekly Flu Watch report. 

Vaccines don’t always match flu strands perfectly, Hilderman said.

“It happens and it happens because the influenza virus is really crafty and it drifts on us and it mutates and it changes,” Hilderman said.

He noted it takes six months to produce a vaccine so scientists go with their best bet when making the flu shot.

“You have to kind of make a decision about what strains are going to be included and then you hope that those are the strains that continue to be the dominant strains,” Hilderman said.

He said although the flu shot wasn’t effective against H3N2 it may still work against other strains of influenza.

He said it’s available for anyone who wants it.

“It’s not too late to do that,” he said.

-- First published in the Selkirk Record print edition February 5, 2015 p.3