Low levels of Respiratory Viruses

Our weekly graphs will be coming on line shortly, once all of our sites start reporting their statistics. In the meantime I am getting some reports of sporadic RSV in the community and occasional influenza A. The nationwide surveillance shows flu circulation to be at low levels (<1%). Here is an update from the CDC with a link to their flu website:

During week 41 (October 8 - October 14, 2006), a low level of influenza
activity was reported in the United States. Nine (1.0%) specimens tested
by U.S. World Health Organization (WHO) and National Respiratory and
Enteric Virus Surveillance System (NREVSS) collaborating laboratories
were positive for influenza. The proportion of patient visits to
sentinel providers for influenza-like illness (ILI) and the proportion
of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza were below baseline
levels. Two states reported local influenza activity; six states
reported sporadic influenza activity; 40 states, New York City, and the
District of Columbia reported no influenza activity, and 2 states did
not report.
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/

Influenza vaccinations have started across the county and with that comes questions about supply of vaccine. There are expected to be over 100 million doses distributed during this 2006-7 season and 3/4 of the supply is expected to be available by the end of this week. For the transcript of the CDC's press briefing with Jeanne Santoli, MD, MPH,
Deputy Director of the Immunization Services Division at the National
Centers for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at CDC go to: http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/transcripts/t061018.htm

Influenza A and RSV have been spotted

Our sites (note the new addition of Southern California Kaiser, Harbor General Hospital and Childrens Hospital of Orange County) are starting to provide me with weekly totals of their respiratory viral isolates. So far we don't have enough for a graph, but I will tell you that in the last two weeks several sites have reported positive parainfluenza, adenovirus and in the last week one site reported both RSV and Influenza A. Influenza vaccines are available at many sites, now is the time to get immunized and to immunize your patients!

Respiratory Viral Isolate Tracking is Back!

We are back from a restful, influenza and RSV-free summer and anxious to start our reporting.
Over the summer, although there was no reporting of influenza or RSV, we did have sporadic parainfluenza (primarily type 3) isolations.
We are excited to be adding three new sites to our reporting this season. We will be including data from Southern California Kaiser, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Children's Hospital of Orange County, bringing our total number of reporting sites to 7.
This week one of our sites is reporting out our first influenza A isolation by direct testing. We will be updating our graph with weekly statistics in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.