TAMPA, Fla. — Health officials know that after the holidays with family gatherings, and travel there’s always a spike in respiratory illnesses in January. But this year is more active than usual.
“This year has been pretty intense,” said Dr. Rosa Taveras-Delgado, a pediatrician with AdventHealth.
She’s had a busy few weeks seeing an influx of patients with the flu, mostly strain A.
“Definitely the influenza this year has been kicking pretty hard,” said Taveras-Delgado.
There have been more flu cases this year in both kids and adults.
“We are seeing more cases than we did last year,” said Dr. Michael Teng, virologist and USF Health associate professor. “If you look at Florida I think we’re sort of at the peak for flu right now but it’s been increasing nationally."
With the flu, symptoms include headache, congestion, fever, and body aches that come on quickly.
“It’s kind of an overnight thing… it’s all of a sudden like you were fine yesterday and today you woke up feeling really bad,” said Taveras-Delgado.
She’s seen an unusual symptom in kids associated with the flu this season.
“I’ve been seeing a lot of patients, for example, in kids for croup associated with influenza. Which is not like the usual case for people, for a pediatric case,” said Taveras-Delgado.
If you haven’t gotten a flu shot yet, experts said it’s not too late.
“If you haven’t had the flu already, a flu shot is a great idea still,” said Teng.
RSV is on the rise too, and health officials predict we’ll start seeing more COVID-19 cases soon.
“It’s going to be kind of like back to back to back peaks of flu, RSV, and COVID,” said Teng.
Dr. Taveras-Delgado has already been seeing kids come in with RSV.
“I’ve seen more severe cases of RSV recently,” said Taveras-Delgado.
The three major warning signs doctors want parents to watch for in children are high fevers that don’t improve with medicine, dehydration, and difficulty breathing.
“Those things you have to pay a lot of attention to if you see…like bobbing of the head and breathing on through the belly really fast then that’s definitely a hallmark and you have to take the kid to the emergency room right away,” said Taveras-Delgado.
Teng told ABC Action News with new preventive measures for RSV, he’s hopeful there will be fewer severe cases in infants if parents take advantage of them.
“We do have really good new maternal vaccination as well as this long-lasting antibody for infants so you know those are great tools that we didn’t have a couple of years ago for RSV,” said Tang.
Doctors recommend that you wash your hands frequently to prevent illness. They also encourage you to keep your children home from school if they’re sick to limit the spread of the disease.
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