{"id":342064,"date":"2025-12-13T06:40:35","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T06:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/342064\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T06:40:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T06:40:35","slug":"alberta-ers-seeing-flood-of-influenza-patients-as-cases-jump-70-in-a-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/342064\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta ERs seeing flood of influenza patients as cases jump 70% in a week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Respiratory illness season is ramping up fast in Alberta, with a massive jump in numbers coming into December that is keeping emergency room physicians and other health-care workers busy.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are seeing numbers that we\u2019ve never seen before in our emergency departments,\u201d said\u00a0Dr. Louis Francescutti<\/a>, a University of Alberta public health professor and emergency physician at the Royal Alexandra Hospital and Northeast Community Health Centre in Edmonton.<\/p>\n

\u201cInfluenza has arrived, and a lot of our numbers are driven by influenza.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alberta\u2019s current respiratory season started on Aug. 24.<\/p>\n

As of Nov. 29, there has been 2,180 laboratory-confirmed seasonal influenza cases. Just over 500 of those required hospitalization, 31 of which ended up in the ICU. There had been 15 deaths.<\/p>\n

A week later, the numbers jumped up by 70 per cent.<\/p>\n

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Provincial data showed as of Dec. 6, there were 3,703 lab-confirmed influenza cases, over 800 hospitalizations, including 54 ICU admissions, and 21 deaths.<\/p>\n

Dr. Shazma Mithani, another emergency room physician at the Royal Alex who also works at the Stollery Children\u2019s Hospital, on Wednesday said recently she\u2019s treated an average of four to five patients a shift who are testing positive for influenza A.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing in with really debilitating symptoms like fevers going on for days, feeling super gross, body aches everywhere, super low energy, cough, shortness of breath and many of these patients are actually needing admission.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the common themes is that most of these people needing admission do not have their flu shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two strains of influenza A \u2014 H3N2 and H1N1 \u2014 are circulating across Canada, but H3N2 appears to be the dominant strain this year, which Mithani said makes the flu shot about 30 to 40 per cent effective at preventing the disease.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCalgary mother concerned after lengthy process to get family\u2019s annual flu vaccinations\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

H3N2 tends to make older people sicker because they\u2019ve built up more immunity to H1N1 over the course of their lifetimes, Montreal Children\u2019s Hospital pediatric infectious disease specialist Dr. Jesse Papenburg said last week.<\/p>\n

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Hospitals are seeing more children sick with flu after the virus began circulating earlier than usual this year.<\/p>\n

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A surveillance network covering 15 children\u2019s hospitals across the country shows a rise in emergency department visits for the flu.<\/p>\n

H3N2 has mutated over the last several months, Papenburg said, meaning the vaccine may not offer as much protection against that strain as infectious disease specialists had hoped.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen is that the virus evolved a little bit from the time that the choices were made for the vaccine strains. And this H3N2 strain that is circulating is not a perfect match with what is in the vaccine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s still worth getting the shot, doctors say, because some protection is better than none to reduce the risk of complications, being hospitalized or dying.<\/p>\n

But it isn\u2019t just the flu driving people to seek help in emergency rooms.<\/p>\n

Last month a tuberculosis<\/a>\u00a0outbreak was declared in central Edmonton, where several cases have been detected among people who live in the inner-city or are homeless and spend their time in the downtown core.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTuberculosis outbreak declared among Edmonton inner-city homeless population\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

This, after a Shigella\u00a0outbreak spread through the same community a few years ago. Shigella<\/a>\u00a0is an acute infectious disease that\u2019s commonly associated with\u00a0diarrhea<\/a>, as well as fever, nausea and stomach cramps. A strain of the bacteria causes dysentery.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve got TB in the inner city, shigella is probably going to be showing up again soon,\u201d Francescutti\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese crowded conditions just spread disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside of hospitals, pharmacists say this year\u2019s cold and flu season appears to be hitting people harder than in recent years.<\/p>\n

Medicine Shoppe pharmacist Rosalina Yuen is seeing lots of people seeking relief from sore throats, runny noses, cough, tightness in their chest and some are also losing their voice. While exhausting, most of those symptoms can be treated at home if they are not severe.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it\u2019s viral infection, we\u2019ll tell them to restore like a lot of rest, increase fluids, and just don\u2019t go to work \u2014 rest at home so that it doesn\u2019t get spread.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yuen also stressed the importance of flu and COVID shots.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s available publicly for people that are qualified for certain conditions, or they are low-income seniors, they can get it from the public health.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlberta pharmacies struggle to stock COVID-19 vaccines\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The Alberta government is providing the COVID vaccine\u00a0for free to people with the following conditions<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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\t\t\tCerebrovascular diseaseChronic liver diseasesChronic lung diseasesChronic kidney diseasesCystic fibrosisDiabetes (Type 1 and Type 2)Disabilities (for example, Down syndrome; learning, intellectual or developmental disabilities; ADHD; cerebral palsy; congenital disabilities; spinal cord injuries)Heart conditions (for example, cardiomyopathies, coronary artery disease, heart failure)Mental health disorders (limited to: mood disorders, including depression; schizophrenia, spectrum disorders)ObesityPregnancyTuberculosisCancer (in treatment)HIV infectionPrimary immunodeficiency diseasesSolid organ or blood stem cell transplantUse of corticosteroids, other immunosuppressive medication or CAR T-cell therapy<\/p>\n

Yuen said those who don\u2019t qualify for an exemption can also try to get the $100 COVID vaccine covered by their private health insurance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can run the insurance through. Sometimes they\u2019re covered for quite a bit,\u201d she said, adding a lot of people aren\u2019t aware that is an option.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFlu, COVID-19 vaccination numbers concerning, says epidemiologist\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u2013with files from Nicole Ireland, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Respiratory illness season is ramping up fast in Alberta, with a massive jump in numbers coming into December…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[129127,149484,49,48,84,60479],"class_list":["post-342064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-alberta-health","tag-alberta-influenza","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-influenza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}