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Health
CDC: New flu season less severe than previous year
By wire services
Published March 4, 2005
ATLANTA - After all the panic last fall over the vaccine shortage, the flu season is turning out milder than last year's, but it may not have peaked yet, officials said Thursday.
"It doesn't look like it's as severe as last year, but it's too early to tell," said Lynnette Brammer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Last year, flu cases started early and rapidly hit a high point in December, clogging emergency rooms with flu sufferers. By the end of that season, 153 children had died from the flu. So far this season, nine children have died from the flu.
Flu cases this season did not really start to increase until the end of December. As of Feb. 19, the latest data available, all 50 states have had at least one lab-confirmed flu case and 33 states have had widespread flu activity.
The outbreak could peak within the next two weeks, which would be somewhat later than usual, the CDC said.
The season began with widespread fears of a vaccine shortage after a factory in England was shut down. The shutdown cut off half the U.S. supply of shots.
That prompted the government to recommend restricting the shot to high-risk groups.
Each year in the U.S., about 36,000 people die of the flu.
National organ swap program in the works
CHICAGO - Kidney transplant specialists pushed Thursday for a national organ swap program that they say could be lifesaving for thousands of ailing patients on transplant waiting lists.
The swap, already done at about 30 U.S. hospitals, would involve patients who need transplants and have relatives or friends willing to donate but whose kidneys aren't a match. Each patient-donor pair would be matched with another pair to allow reciprocal transplants.
Creating a national "paired kidney exchange" would allow transplants for about half the 6,000 U.S. patients yearly who have willing donors with incompatible kidneys because of different blood types or other reasons, said Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of Johns Hopkins University's Comprehensive Transplant Center.
[Last modified March 4, 2005, 00:53:44]
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