Flu season expected to pick up over the holidays

Rudolph may not be the only one with a red nose during the holidays.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) is out with its first influenza surveillance report of the season.

“The flu season is probably going to start peaking within the next two to three weeks so it may be throughout the holidays and certainly once school and university starts in the new year,” Dr. Saqib Shahab, the province’s chief medical health officer, said Thursday.

The province was initially worried it wouldn’t receive its big order of vaccinations in time to roll them out effectively.

“It was touch and go in September, October but luckily we ordered a record number of flu vaccines this year and we got them just in time to start our clinics,” said Shahab.

Shahab said the province is seeing a 15 per cent uptick in people getting flu shots this year. The SHA ordered 436,000 vaccines for this season and has used 330,000 of them so far.

It’s too early to know how effective the flu shot will be against this year’s dominant strain, S3N2. Shahab said generally, the flu vaccine is less effective against S3N2 than last year’s strain, H1N1, especially for seniors and those with underlying risk factors.

Shahab said during most flu seasons, there are 60 to 80 outbreaks in long-term care facilities. Because the flu season is just getting started, there have only been five outbreaks so far, with one admission to the intensive care unit and zero deaths.

While the best time to get the flu shot is before the season begins, Shahab said people can still get immunized. He reminds that infants under six months of age cannot receive the flu shot but encourages parents to immunize their child during this flu season once they do pass the six-month mark.

The flu season is expected to end toward the middle of February, into the beginning of March.