Doctors warn on proper care as flu season hits Nelson Mandela Bay

Nelson Mandela Bay is in the grip of the flu and doctors are advising sick patients not to go to work and parents to keep sick children at home.

“We could literally see the start of flu season last Monday,” clinical pathologist Dr Louise Nutt said.

“The number of positive infections just exploded.”

Nutt emphasised that flu was a preventable illness and that the yearly flu vaccine was very effective.

It would still be beneficial for healthy people to have a flu vaccination, she said.

“It takes the body two weeks to develop antibodies.”

Anybody who had flu symptoms or symptoms of another illness should not have the vaccination, especially not if they had a fever.

“We have identified three strains of the flu virus active this winter – two Influenza A strains and one Influenza B strain,” she said.

The majority of cases doctors had seen were a type of Influenza A, H3N1 – and that was not swine flu, she said.

Nutt said they distinguished between Type A and Type B Influenza as Type A made people more ill.

She said in most cases, the illness was diagnosed by its symptoms, including a high fever, headache, body aches, a dry cough, nausea (mostly in children) and confusion (in older adults.)

In high-risk cases, doctors did tests for the flu by using swabs from the nose or throat.

She said patients at high risk of developing severe or complicated influenza could end up in hospital.

These included pregnant women, people living with HIV, TB and chronic diseases, people over the age of 65, children receiving chronic aspirin therapy, the morbidly obese and children under two.

She said children under six months should not receive the flu vaccine.

“Antibiotics are not a suitable treatment for the flu.

“It is not a bacteria, it is a virus,” Nutt said.

“It can be very dangerous. We have had people who have died of it,” she said.

Nutt said the treatment for flu was called Tamiflu or Tamivir and should ideally be administered within 48 hours of symptoms starting as its efficacy waned.

She believed Grey Junior School, which urged parents to keep the boys home for a couple of days, had made a wise decision.

With about 25% of the boys at the Mill Park school ill and 20% of the staff also feeling off colour, school principal Lindsay Pearson asked parents to keep children at home for a few days where possible.

“Flu infections are spread through droplets and especially in places where people are exposed to it for a long time, like in a classroom,” she said.

She said it was also prudent to keep children at home when they had flu symptoms as this would prevent them from passing the virus to others.

“The incubation period for the virus is one to four days. People are contagious 24 hours before they show symptoms.

“Children are more contagious than adults,” she said.

General practitioner Dr Werner Strydom, from Circular Health, said there was a bit of confusion between colds and the flu among the public.

“A cold can be caused by several viruses. The flu is caused by a very specific virus and is highly contagious.

“Flu symptoms are fairly unique, especially a high fever and muscle and joint pains.”

He said it depended on the individual when it would become necessary to see a doctor.

But very young babies (under six months) and older people (over 65) as well as pregnant women and patients with chronic illnesses should see a doctor sooner rather than later.