Spring may be in the air, but flu season is still with us and could stick around as late as May. With a recent flurry of H1N1 activity in the Southeast, public health officials are still urging people to get vaccinated against the H1N1 virus.
The virus is still circulating significantly in Georgia, where H1N1 hospitalizations have been higher in recent weeks than they were during last October, when infections were high nationwide, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, in a telephone briefing to reporters.
Georgia health officials asked a group of CDC infectious disease specialists to visit the state and investigate the new cases. For now, no one knows why Georgia is being hit harder than other states. But CDC officials continued their mantra that the vaccination is the best protection against getting sick.
While infections are down overall compared to last fall's surge in H1N1, people are still vulnerable, particularly adults with chronic diseases, said Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin. She cautioned that minorities are at even higher risk because they tend to have higher rates of chronic diseases.
The government has some 124 million doses of vaccine left on hand and wants to use them up. And to think just months ago, there was a mad scramble to get vaccine to enough people in advance of the winter flu season.
So far, the virus has infected some 60 million people nationwide, responsible for 205,000 hospitalizations and some 12,000 deaths.
About 36,000 people die nationwide during a typical flu season. While the new strain has killed fewer people, it has disproportionately struck the young and largely spared the elderly.