Not Too Late for Flu Inoculation

"It's tragic whenever there is a death due to influenza in a child. No question about it, it's heartbreaking. Fortunately, it is a rare event."
"But that doesn't mean that deaths due to influenza in otherwise healthy people -- including children -- doesn't happen. They do. They're just rare."
"Most otherwise healthy individuals are going to fully recover from influenza with no intervention."
"We don't want to set off alarm bells. We need to put this into context."
Dr. Danuta Skowronski, influenza expert, B.C. Centre for Disease Control

"We have a tendency to think that because influenza is so common and because almost all of the time you get it, you feel miserable for a few days and then you get better."
"That's our view of influenza and we don't recognize that there are a small number of catastrophically serious cases in children and young, otherwise healthy adults."
Dr. Allison McGeer, director of infection control, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto

There are indeed shocking instances when a bout with influenza ends the lives of otherwise healthy and young people. That's what it did for 21-year-old Kyler Baughman of Pennsylvania who died as a result of septic shock related to the flu he was infected with. With flu it's possible, albeit rare, for a secondary bacterial infection to invade the lungs. Occasionally such a lung infection is capable of finding its way into the bloodstream, and that's where sepsis is introduced, when blood so infected can lead to septic shock.

With septic shock, the body's organs shut down, and death ensues. Infectious disease specialists caution that children and adults with pre-existing health conditions who develop the symptoms of flu, inclusive of high fever, chills, body aches, extreme fatigue, cough and sore throat, should seek out immediate medical attention. Treatment with an antiviral medication reduces the risk of complications. Flu can also exacerbate chronic underlying medical conditions such as asthma and cystic fibrosis both in children and adults.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and congestive heart failure in older adults produce a more vulnerable target for the flu virus to wreak its ill effects. Pneumonia rates among the most common complications arising from infection, brought on with one of the influenza viruses in circulation this season: A/H3N2 and B/Yamagata are the dominant strains of influenza in this 2017/18 flu season.

Making vaccines isn't always a straightforward process. (Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)

In the United States, thirty pediatric deaths have been recorded from influenza for this season. A ten-year-old boy in Connecticut developed pneumonia and sepsis in the days following his flu infection. His mother described the boy, Nico Mallozzi, as healthy and strong "as an ox", but that condition failed to protect him from death caused by the flu, just as being highly fit failed to protect aspiring personal trainer Kyler Baughman in Pennsylvania.

Nico Mallozzi. Photo courtesy of Mimma Mallozzi

As of January 13, when the latest seasonal statistics became available, fewer than five flu-related pediatric deaths were reported in Canada (bearing in mind that Canada has one-tenth the population of he United States), yet 303 children under the age of 17 had been admitted to hospital in Canada, with 48 of them sufficiently ill with influenza that they were admitted to the ICU, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada, on its FluWatch website.

Even though the vaccine now in circulation -- and widely used to inoculate those who respond to public health agencies' urgent appeals to the public to protect themselves -- happens to have a lower-than-expected efficacy given the flu viruses's confounding ability to transform itself into various strains and combinations of strains, making the vaccine formula as much informed guesswork as the occasion permits, health authorities insist it can still aid in reducing the severity of symptoms in those who may contract the flu.