5 new flu deaths push season total in Clark County to 11

The number of flu fatalities in Clark County has climbed to 11 this season, with the Southern Nevada Health District on Friday reporting five new deaths since a week ago.

The health district reported four new deaths in people 65 and older and one death of a child under the age of 5.

As of Jan. 4, there were a total this flu season of eight deaths of seniors, two deaths of people ages 50 to 64, and one death of a child.

“That’s fairly typical,” said Dr. Vit Kraushaar, a medical investigator for the district. “The people who are at most risk of complication from the flu are at the extremes of the age groups,” along with people with certain chronic medical conditions.

The health district has recorded 634 influenza cases requiring hospitalization so far this season. At this time last year, there had been 11 deaths in Clark County, the same number as this season, but only 260 hospitalizations.

“Our local trends are reflected across the country,” with the number of cases up but not the number of deaths, Kraushaar said. This suggests that this season’s flu strains have been less severe, though it’s too early to reach that conclusion, he added.

“Even though we’ve seen more cases, I’m glad that we haven’t seen more deaths for this time of year,” he continued “Obviously any death from the flu is a tragedy.”

Both Clark County and Nevada experienced a high level of flu-like illness early in the flu season, which typically extends from October until May. Nevada is currently seeing a low level of flu activity, according to a flu index from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Flu season typically peaks sometime between December and February, Kraushaar said. However, Clark County’s cases peaked in late November, when about 11 percent of emergency room and urgent care visits were for influenza-like illness, meaning that not all cases were confirmed through testing and some could have been other types of respiratory illness.

That percentage has dropped to 5 percent, he said.

That doesn’t mean that it won’t rise again, Kraushaar cautioned.

“Sometimes flu seasons can have more than one peak,” he said. “It’s still too early to say whether that will be the case here or not.”

The CDC states that “everyone 6 months of age and older should get a flu vaccine every season with rare exception.”

Kraushaar reiterated that message, saying, “It’s not too late to get a flu shot.”

Contact Mary Hynes at mhynes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0336. Follow @MaryHynes1 on Twitter.