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Health Department to Host Flu Shot Clinics
May 21, 2013The DeWitt/Piatt Bi-County Health Department announced today that they will be hosting the first of their flu shot clinics starting on September 3 at their new office in Clinton located at 5924 Revere Road, followed by a second clinic on September 10 at their Monticello office located at 1020 S. Market St. “We expect to schedule more clinics shortly, but these will start us off this season”, said Dave Remmert, Administrator for the agency.
The announcement serves as an important precaution. “The flu is often very unpredictable in terms of how fast it sweeps across the country, where it goes, how severe the cases are – and there remains the possibility that this will be a severe influenza season. Even in so-called “mild” seasons, millions of people contract influenza and tens of thousands get very ill. Each year across this country there are an estimated 200,000 hospitalizations and 36,000 deaths attributed to this illness,” Remmert said. Winter is the prime time for influenza with seasons typically ranging from November through the end of March and sometimes later. Now is a good time to get vaccinated so that protection is in place before the flu season hits.
The flu is an infection of the respiratory tract caused by the influenza virus. Compared with most viral respiratory infections, such as the common cold, influenza infection often causes a more severe illness. Typical influenza illness includes fever (usually 100 degrees F to 103 degrees F in adults and often even higher in children) and respiratory symptoms, such as cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, as well as headache, muscle aches and extreme fatigue. Although nausea, vomiting and diarrhea can sometimes accompany influenza infection, especially in children, these symptoms are rarely the primary symptoms. The term "stomach flu" is a misnomer that is sometimes used to describe gastrointestinal illnesses caused by organisms other than influenza viruses.
Most people who get the flu recover completely in 1 to 2 weeks, but some people develop serious and potentially life-threatening medical complications, such as pneumonia. Over the past decade, influenza and pneumonia have been associated with an average of 3,500 deaths a year in Illinois. Since 1992, the highest number of flu and pneumonia deaths was the 4,021 recorded in 1993. Flu-related complications can occur at any age, but the elderly and people with chronic health problems are much more likely to develop serious complications after influenza infection than are young, healthier people.
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