8 Nursing Home Deaths in December : Officials Detect ‘Late’ County Flu Outbreak

Eight Fullerton nursing home residents died in late December from a flu virus, and Orange County health officials detected a new outbreak of influenza here last week.

County epidemiologist Thomas J. Prendergast said Tuesday that he has now confirmed that a “classic” flu strain, a variant of Influenza A called A(H3N2), has struck Orange County. That flu strain was confirmed in a culture from a 15-year-old Orange County boy last week, Prendergast said.

Prendergast said county health officials were immediately notified when the eight nursing home residents died of a respiratory illness between Christmas and New Year’s, but added that he was only able to confirm from lab results released last week that the cause was Type A flu. He said said the lab results did not break down the virus to the specific A(H3N2) strain.

“It’s started late but flu has finally started,” said Prendergast, who himself is suffering from an unidentified respiratory virus that could turn out to be flu.

Prendergast said the eight Orange County deaths confirmed so far from flu are high for a single nursing home but are not unusual in a typical winter flu season. He declined to name the nursing home.

“In a bad year, you might have 100 or more deaths” in Orange County, Prendergast said. The last time Orange County recorded a large number of deaths was in 1984, he said, noting the number of deaths then was not immediately available. In 1986, county health officials suspected that complications from Type B flu, the prevalent flu that year, caused the deaths of two school-age children.

Two other Orange County nursing homes experienced flu-like symptoms in December, but Prendergast said the illness turned out to be a respiratory virus, not flu.

He noted that “whenever there is a respiratory outbreak of any kind” in a convalescent home, that illness, whether it turns out to be flu or not, is “more than likely to precipitate heart disease or any problems they have.” As a result, he said, flu-related deaths among elderly people in nursing homes are “unfortunately” not uncommon.

Dr. L. Rex Ehling, county public health director, said the eight nursing home deaths “emphasize the need for the elderly to get immunizations.” If high-risk groups, such as elderly people and children with leukemia and heart disease, are immunized, flu deaths can be prevented, Ehling said.

Later Than Usual

Prendergast said flu outbreaks typically strike in early December, last about two weeks and are gone, but this year’s flu may be unusual because it appears to starting later than usual.

Though Prendergast has not yet had a culture of his virus taken, he said that this week the county Health Care Agency cultured samples from several staff members who displayed typical flu symptoms--cough, fever, aching joints and headache.

Without a culture, Prendergast said, it is impossible to distinguish between influenza and a miscellaneous respiratory virus.

Prendergast said he does not know how widespread the flu detected last week has become. Recently, two other cases of that strain were detected in Los Angeles, according to Rick Greenwood, director of the county’s public health laboratory.

According to the National Centers for Disease Control, outbreaks of this particular flu strain have already been confirmed in Minnesota, New York, Wisconsin and 22 other states.

For those who suffer a respiratory ailment, whether confirmed as flu or not, Prendergast advises bed rest, drinking plenty of liquids and seeking medical advice if the symptoms linger or seem unusually severe.