Officials predict mild flu season

HARLINGEN - It comes every year like clockwork, sweeping east from Asia like a weather pattern and leaving sniffling, suffering souls in its wake.

The eight-month-long flu season is expected to peak in February, and state epidemiologists say this is on track to be an ordinary year - which may mean fewer Rio Grande Valley residents with coughs, body aches and sore throats than during last year's more severe season.
Barbara Adams, an epidemiologist for the Texas Department of State Health Services in Harlingen, said the flu vaccines administered this season were a good match to the three strains of flu that are in circulation, meaning those who got their shots are unlikely to get the influenza virus.

"It's not too late," Adams said.

She urged those who have avoided getting the vaccine to hurry - flu shots take about two weeks to produce immune resistance to the virus.

The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that one of three common strains has become drug-resistant, meaning it won't be banished by the antiviral drug Tamiflu. At least three patients in Cameron County and one in Starr County tested positive for that strain of the virus in the week before Christmas, according to state records.

The flu is rarely deadly but can be dangerous for those in poor health and with weakened immune systems, as well as for the very old and the very young.

Unlike the common cold, which is also prevalent in the winter but which makes less of an impact, the flu generally comes with a fever, body aches and a dry cough, while stuffy noses and wet coughs generally indicate a cold.