The number of people seeking medical treatment for the flu or flu-like illnesses spiked across the province in the past two weeks, but only three cases of influenza have been confirmed in Prince George.
While provincial figures show the percentage of Medical Services Plan claims in the last two weeks devoted to flu-like conditions surpassing the 10-year maximum rate in most regions of the province, Northern Health communicable disease team program manager Carolyn Bouchard said the number of confirmed cases locally hasn't been out of the ordinary.
In Northern Health's central interior region, there have been 14 confirmed cases, the northwest has had nine and the northeast has had just one.
"[A confirmed case] means that the person had to go to the physician, had to swab, the swab had to go Vancouver to be tested," Bouchard said. "That doesn't mean there aren't more people out there that are sick."
According to the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, the rates in Northern Health are slightly above the 10-year maximum rates for the last two weeks of December. However the agency noted the jump in the past two weeks could be attributed in part to the holiday season.
"During the holiday period, presentations for acute illness may continue while patients defer medical visits for other chronic or routine causes," the centre wrote in its latest update. "This can cause an inflated estimate of medically attended as a proportion of all services at this time of year."
Another complicating factor is many people use the term "flu" generically to refer to a host of medical conditions that are actually caused by other viruses. Bouchard said the health authority uses it to specifically refer to the respiratory infection.
Over a quarter (25.6 per cent) of specimens tested in B.C. the past two weeks came back positive for a strain of the flu, compared with just 17.3 per cent in in the previous reporting period.
Other bugs, like norovirus, have been spreading in other regions of the province and, like the flu, can cause complications for high risk groups like the elderly, the young and those with chronic conditions.
"Any of these viruses, no matter if we're talking about norovirus or influenza, any of them are nasty for somebody who is already vulnerable," Boucahrd said.
The most common strain of flu that lab reports have detected province wide at more than 83 per cent has been H1N1 and that bears out in the very small Prince George sample where two of the three cases have been H1N1.
Although H1N1 made headlines during the pandemic year of 2009, it has been around ever since. Like any flu, people can get a mild, moderate or severe case of it.
An outbreak in Alberta has led to five deaths and nearly 1,000 cases, but so far Bouchard hasn't seen anything like that locally. But she said people still should take precautions to avoid the spread of the disease, the most important of which is covering your mouth when you cough.
"If somebody coughs and you walk through it, you pick [the virus] up," she said.
Bouchard said there's been good uptake of the flu vaccine this year and the H1N1 strain is one of the three included in the injection.
"If you want to get the very best protection for yourself, get the vaccine, wash your hands and practice cough etiquette," she said.
