Beijing Flu Outbreak Pounds L.A. County : Health: Absenteeism has been up sharply on the job and in schools. Kaiser hospital adds staff to cope with influx of patients.

An outbreak of Beijing flu has swept Los Angeles, boosting absenteeism at local companies, schools and government offices and sending droves of feverish people to doctors’ offices and hospitals, health officials said Tuesday.

Los Angeles County communicable-disease officials said that they have confirmed an outbreak of Beijing flu, also known as Influenza A, and that some local schools have reported absentee rates exceeding 15% in recent weeks.

“We’re seeing a huge number of flu patients. . . . People are really sick. They feel like a truck ran over them,” said Dr. David Potyk, area medical director at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Panorama City.

Dr. David Dassey, an epidemiologist with the county Department of Health Services, said officials recently tested 40 culture samples from ill people sent in by local doctors and hospitals, and all were positive for Beijing flu.

The county health department does not keep statistics on the number of people falling prey to the flu. But Dassey said officials have received numerous anecdotal reports of employers with high absentee rates.

“Everybody’s sick,” said a receptionist at Walt Disney Co. in Burbank.

“I’ve been sick and so has everyone else,” said Lt. Dan Peavy of the San Fernando Police Department. “Guys are coming in and you know they don’t feel well. I think everyone here has had it.”

Potyk said his Kaiser Permanente center was adding more staff to cope with flu patients, who he said were seeking treatment there in record numbers.

“We’re just very, very busy,” he said.

Schools are closed for the holidays this week, but Dassey said earlier reports indicated that 24 schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District said more than 10% of their students stayed home recently. Three schools in the Antelope Valley had absentee rates in excess of 15%, he said, adding that the normal rate is 5% to 10%.

Dassey said county health officials isolated their first Beijing flu case during the first week of November, about a month earlier than the normal onset of the flu season. The likelihood of a longer season increases the chances that the outbreak may turn into an epidemic that could close schools and businesses, he said.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, California was among six states that reported regional outbreaks of Beijing flu for the week ending Dec. 11. Oregon and Florida reported widespread outbreaks.

In one unidentified Northern California county, school absenteeism ran as high as 25% and some businesses said as many as 50% of their employees were absent because of flu-like illness, the federal agency said.

Nationwide, flu and pneumonia accounted for 6.6% of all deaths in the week ending Dec. 11. That figure was slightly above the epidemic threshold of 6.2%, the centers reported.

Dassey said many people confuse the flu with other viruses that produce milder symptoms. Flu victims commonly suffer fevers as high as 105 degrees, severe muscle aches and pain, sore throats and headaches.

He said the county health department conducted its last public flu vaccinations Dec. 12. But county clinics still offer vaccinations to medically eligible people, including those over 60.

Those not eligible include otherwise healthy middle-age and young people whose symptoms would be worsened by injection of diluted flu virus in the form of a vaccine, he said.

Dassey urged flu sufferers to drink plenty of liquids and stay in bed but warned against taking aspirin. He said people, especially children, who ingest aspirin while sick with flu run the risk of contracting Reye’s syndrome, a rare but often fatal disease that causes swelling of the brain and liver.

Times staff writer Chip Johnson contributed to this story.