The End Is Near for Flu Season… Hopefully
Cases of influenza B may still be on the rise and peak later in the season.
It appears the flu season peaked a couple weeks ago in Michigan.
The Centers for Disease Control says there were two weeks in a row in February with a decrease in the number of confirmed cases of flu throughout the nation.
Dr. Patty Brown is a professor of internal medicine at Wayne State’s School of Medicine.
She tells WDET’s Laura Weber-Davis she is cautiously optimistic the worse of this particularly dangerous strain of the flu could be behind us, now that the weather is beginning to warm up and people are spending less time cooped up in offices and close quarters.
“Although the majority of cases that we’ve seen is the H3N2, which is a strain of influenza which has been notorious for bad flu seasons… influenza B cases are still on the rise,” says Brown. “This is why we have to get vaccinated every year, because the flu virus is notorious for changing.”
Brown says because this flu season has been particularly bad, it may help spur changes and developments in making better flu vaccines.
To hear from Dr. Brown on Detroit Today, click on the audio player above.
