Dr Reuven Shanik on Flu Outbreak in Lakewood 2013

[Music] my name is ruent Shan I'm pediatri Lakewood and unfortunately this year we're seeing a much larger outbreak of flu influenza as compared to any other year since I've been in practice um the flu outbreak this year started a little bit early it started about a month ago where usually it doesn't start until mid January and Peaks end of January and February I mean this year we're seeing quite probably starting early December we started see case of the flu and it's quite rampant in our community we we're seeing we've seen a thousand over thousand cases of flu just in our practice Alone um last year we saw maybe 100 cases in our practice the whole winter uh three a few years ago we did see an increase in number of flu but never so many cases uh fortunately the flu this year is it seems to be a milder strain uh it usually lasts about four or five days some children after 2 three days uh seem the symptoms seem to diminish and really go away I mean all children high risk all elderly a high risk so we recommend the flu vaccine for all children anywhere between 6 months and up uh patients on chemotherapy or immune problems or chronic illnesses like diabetes kidney problem thid problems are much more high risk and much more dangerous for them and certainly newborns and that's why and pregnant women that's why we're recommending so much to the flu vacine be given uh the flu vaccine is usually given in two doses between 6 months and nine years of age if you haven't received last two years and one dose starting at N9 years of Aging up uh we're really having a good response to the fact that demand is so great the state is running out of flu vaccines at Point at points and there's times where in the office we really have no more flu vaccine but we're trying to get it in as fast as possible as fast as we can get it from the distributor um people feel that they do not want to get the flu vaccine they think it may make things worse on the contrary uh it's not 100% successful it maybe has an after one dose maybe a 80% success rate after two dos maybe 85 to 90% I shouldn't say success rate but in preventing the flu uh last year they felt that they realized the flu vaccine was not exactly uh protective for the strains they saw last year but this year on the strains they' seen it seems to be much more effective this year we're seeing a good number of influen a and influenza B and there a couple of other strains protecting so we're recommending for all children all p s um if how can we prevent the flood besides giving the flood shot I mean proper handwashing proper bedtime proper diet children should be encouraged to uh ZIP their coats and wash their hands very very often U we hope that this outbreak is not going to last too long it's quite taxing on the population and the office we find that uh it's sometimes hard to keep up with the flow because the so the outbreak is really um quite extensive this year probably more flu cases in this practice than we've ever seen in the last 35 years but since the mild the case we were at least happy about that uh so I we really encourage the flu vaccine proper handwashing proper hygiene is extremely important