Countywide : 2 Deaths to Be Checked for Link With Influenza

County health officials are investigating the deaths last month of two children to see whether they were caused by complications from an influenza virus, county epidemiologist Dr. Thomas Prendergast said Monday.

But he said a flu epidemic that has caused widespread absenteeism among school-age children since late December appears to be “tailing off.”

“All the cases we’ve been able to confirm are influenza type B viruses,” Prendergast said. “The (U.S. Centers for Disease Control) announced recently that this Type B strain appears to have changed slightly from last winter’s illness, which was known as the U.S.S.R. flu. That’s why it’s causing a greater amount of illness, especially among young children.”

Federal researchers said earlier this month that the flu vaccine designed to protect against the U.S.S.R. flu was ineffective against the new type B strain, which has evolved more rapidly than usual.

“There has been a lot of influenza activity in Orange County this winter season, primarily in younger people, and it has been manifested by a lot of absenteeism in schools,” Prendergast said. “It seems to be declining slightly now.”

He said the deaths of the two children may be associated with the epidemic. He declined to identify them except to say one had been in a preschool, the other in elementary school.

There have been only “a few reports” of flu outbreaks at work places and none from Orange County convalescent homes, where patients are often more susceptible to illness, he said.

The symptoms have been “the usual headache, fever, cough, runny nose and just generally feeling tired and rundown,” he said. The advice is standard, too: drink lots of fluids, get plenty of rest and take aspirin. Children, however, should be given aspirin substitutes because of studies linking aspirin with Reye’s syndrome.

Prendergast advised people to see a doctor if the illness hangs on longer than 48 hours or the symptoms are more severe.