2 more Clark County flu deaths reported by health district

Two more flu deaths have been reported in Clark County, following a weekly report that nearly doubled the death tally for this year, according to the Southern Nevada Health District.

From Feb. 2 to Feb. 8, two deaths were reported in the county, while the week before there were 11 reported deaths, according to the health district’s website. One of the new deaths was of a person 50 to 64 years old, while the other was a person 65 or older.

The season total of deaths now is 26, according to the health district. There were 13 reported deaths before the last week of January.

A public health official said Wednesday that the increase in reported deaths is signalling that this will be a more severe flu season than last year.

“For a while we were seeing an increase in hospitalizations, but not in deaths,” Dr. Vit Kraushaar, medical investigator for the health district, told the Review-Journal on Wednesday. “Now we’re really seeing the deaths catching up.”

There were an additional 73 hospitalizations during the first week of February, bringing the total number of reported hospitalizations for this season to 1,106, according to the health district.

According to health district data, at this time last flu season there were 14 deaths and 465 hospitalizations in Clark County. Last flu season ended with 37 deaths.

Although the flu season in the U.S. tends to peak by February, “We are still very much in the midst of the flu season here,” Kraushaar said Wednesday. “It’s still not too late to get a flu shot.”

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.