Flu is hitting Port Angeles hard, hospital officials say, but the east and west ends of the North Olympic Peninsula are reporting a less severe season so far.
Flu sufferers comprise one fifth of new admissions to Olympic Medical Center, with three new flu patients arriving for every two who go home, Olympic Medical Center commissioners learned this week.
As of Thursday, six flu patients were at OMC, which has 78 beds.
Meanwhile, 25-bed Jefferson Healthcare hospital had three influenza inpatients.
Forks Community Hospital reported no cases.
Seattle hospitals were overflowing as of mid-week, according to Dr. Scott Kennedy, OMC’s chief medical officer.
Metropolitan medical centers have asked OMC to accept their patients, but Kennedy said the Port Angeles hospital would save its beds for an expected flood of flu cases.
Meanwhile, OMC is diverting suspected flu sufferers at its emergency room to a temporary triage area that’s ordinarily a radiology waiting room, according to Kennedy, to provide “fast-track treatment” while the influenza season grinds on for another predicted four to 10 weeks.
Jefferson Healthcare doesn’t plan any such special response, said Kate Burke, hospital spokeswoman, and a Forks Community Hospital spokesman knew of no similar measures.
OMC also is putting “a huge emphasis on hand hygiene” for both visitors and employees to fight the spread of flu, Kennedy said, setting up hand-sanitizing kiosks in most areas and urging people with coughs to wear masks.
Moreover, hospital volunteers will urge healthy people to stay away from OMC, Kennedy said.
“We’re having a very different season,” he told OMC commissioners Wednesday, partly because of “antigen drift” in the primary flu strain from what the current vaccine protects against.
The drift was discovered about a month too late to alter the vaccine, he said.
“The main virus is a hard hitter, especially for the young and old,” Kennedy said.
Dr. Tom Locke, health officer for Clallam and Jefferson counties, said Thursday three types of influenza are circulating — two forms of Influenza A (known as H3N2 and H1N1) and one type of Influenza B.
Most of the influenza virus that is being detected is of the H3N2 variety, a virus that first crossed over from birds to humans in 1968, causing what became known as the Hong Kong Flu.
The H3N2 virus tends to cause more severe illness than some other strains, Locke said, resulting in more hospitalizations, complications and deaths.
For example, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that, between 1976 snd 2007, an average of 28,909 people died from flu during H3N2 seasons, compared to 10,648 people during non-H3N2 predominant years.
As of Wednesday, 16 deaths from flu had been recorded in Washington state.
Estimates of the national number of flu deaths among people older than 18 were not available for this season, the CDC said. Only pediatric flu deaths are nationally reportable. As of Dec. 27, the CDC reported 21 child deaths from the flu.
The CDC said that 43 states, including Washington, are experiencing high or widespread flu activity.
Both Kennedy and Locke urged people who suspect they have the flu to stay home and treat their symptoms with over-the-counter medications — except for infants, elderly people, or those with chronic respiratory disease, diabetes or other serious ailments.
People at greatest risk of influenza complications are the very young, the elderly, pregnant women, and those with chronic heart, lung, or metabolic conditions, Locke said.
People whose immune systems are impaired by medications, cancer, or other diseases are also at a much-increased risk of developing more severe influenza infections.
These people’s first step should be to contact their primary care providers at the first hint of illness and request a dose of antiviral medication, Kennedy said.
Prescription drugs, the best known being Tamiflu and Relenza, have proved effective at lessening influenza’s effects.
For maximum benefit, antiviral medications should be started within 48 hours after symptoms start, Locke said.
If symptoms still worsen, sufferers should go to the hospital, Kennedy said.
The current flu season was well under way about a month earlier than in previous years.
Positive results on tests for influenza at OMC’s lab rose from none in October to 17 percent in November to 29 percent in December.
That figure compares to a 30.4 percent rate nationwide in the week that ended Dec. 27.
Now, “we suspect it to be influenza,” Kennedy said, whenever a patient’s symptoms include cough, sore throat and headache.
Other national statistics show deaths from flu and pneumonia — nearly 7 percent of reported cases — approaching epidemic levels in the last week of 2014, but that they have since subsided to below-epidemic proportions.
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com