H1N1 Outbreak In Ann Arbor, Mich. Sickens Healthy Adults, Reminds Doctors Of Swine Flu Pandemic
By Ashley Woods
The Huffington Post
01/07/2014
A flu outbreak targeting otherwise-healthy adults has medical experts pleading for the public to get vaccinated.
Hospital workers in Ann Arbor, Mich., say that hospitals have been swarmed with patients reporting flu-like symptoms — symptoms dire enough for them to seek medical attention in emergency rooms or clinics. Over a dozen patients were reportedly in ICU at the University of Michigan Health System’s hospitals after being transferred from other locations throughout the state last Friday. Most of the patients have been diagnosed with the H1N1 strain of flu.
“As of yesterday afternoon there were about a dozen people in our ICUs with suspected or confirmed flu, about the same number as on Friday,” Kara Gavin, public relations representative for University of Michigan Health Center, told The Huffington Post on Tuesday morning. “We have also had an increase in number of people hospitalized in non-ICU hospital units over the last few days,” she said, along with continued increases in ER traffic due to flu-like illness.
Three adults have already died from the virus, according to the Detroit Free Press, along with an infant in mid-Michigan.
What’s worrying doctors most is that these critically patients are, for the most part, relatively young and were healthy before contracting the virus. The wave of sick patients led the hospital to temporarily issue visitor restrictions to protect healthy patients from unnecessary exposure to the virus.
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