The 2012-2013 influenza season began early and is widespread in some areas of the United States, including North Carolina, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We’re just off to a little bit sooner start than normal.  The viruses that we are seeing, that are circulating, are matched well with our vaccine, which is good,” said Tom Skinner, CDC’s spokesman for influenza matters. “You can’t really predict how severe our season may or may not be. It’s just something that we just have to wait and see play out.”
Skinner urges anyone who has not yet been vaccinated against the flu to do so as soon as possible.
“We want people to go out and get vaccinated if they have not gotten vaccinated. It’s not too late. We’re not hearing of any problems out there with people not being able to get vaccines,” Skinner said.
“We usually don’t get a lot of cases until February, January. I’ve already seen several (cases) today,” said Dr. Fred Teixeira with Vidant Internal Medicine-Washington on Friday. “It looks to be more severe. It’s going to be a nasty year.”
Teixeira said the answer to fighting the flu is simple.
“Got to get vaccinated. It’s not too late. You haven’t been vaccinated, get vaccinated,” he said. “Get vaccinated that’s the key.”
Although CDC does not track flu-related deaths, Skinner said, it is aware that about five children have died because of the flu so far this flu season, he said.
“In an average flu season, we can have thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of people hospitalized due to the flu,” Skinner said.
There have been three flu-related deaths in North Carolina this flu season, according to CDC’s website.
Some North Carolina hospitals have put stricter rules in place to govern visits to their patients in efforts to reduce exposure of patients and staff to the flu. Some of those restrictions include limiting visits to immediate family, children under age 12 are not allowed to visit and no one with flu-like symptoms are allowed to visit patients.
Carol Kinnion, director of nursing for the Beaufort County Health Department, said the county is experiencing an increase in flu cases.
“We are seeing in Beaufort County, as we are state-wide, seeing increased numbers of flu and flu-related illness through emergency departments, through the physicians’ practices,” Kinnion said.
She also recommends people get vaccinated as soon as possible if they have not been vaccinated this flu season.
Kinnion echoed Skinner’s statement about this season’s flu strains matching up well with this season’s flu vaccines. Kinnion said those matches are occurring about 88 percent this flu season.
In Beaufort County’s public schools in recent weeks, almost all student-related absences are flu-related, said Sarah Hodges, public information officer with Beaufort County Schools. Teachers also are missing school because of the flu, she said.
“Some schools are even having trouble finding enough (substitute teachers) on occasion,” Hodges said.
Hodges said she compared absentee rates at individual schools for three consecutive Mondays: Nov. 26, Dec. 3 and Dec. 10.
“You can see it’s going up a little bit. Some schools have spiked and already come back down. We have some that have been hit harder than others, or it could be where we know about these,” Hodges said.
A random sampling from the information collected by Hodges shows Bath Elementary School had 22 students absent Nov. 26, 32 student absences Dec. 3 and 46 student absences Dec. 10. At Washington High School, 33 students were absent Nov. 26, 61 students were absent Dec. 3 and 79 students were absent Dec. 10.
System-wide, 406 students were absent Nov. 26, 441 students were absent Dec. 3 and 505 students were absent Dec. 10.