Tens of thousands of people die from the flu every year, yet most of us tend to ignore it. In today's podcast we discuss the dangers of influenza, the effect it has had on history, and what the future holds.

Greetings all.  Hard

to believe that my podcast has been going for almost 4 months.  I really do appreciate all of you tuning in

every week.  Hope you’ve enjoyed

listening as much as I have enjoyed making them.

Today’s podcast is

Influenza: I think there is a shot for that

All the coverage the

coronavirus has been getting has made me want to talk about the flu.  It is always easy to be scared of the new

unknown thing, while we easily disregard the common everyday hazards.

Year-in and year-out the flu kills almost as many people as

traffic deaths.  Yet, we almost

completely ignore this illness every fall.

I pretty much ignored the illness, after all, what's the

worst that could happen?  You just feel

lousy for a couple of days and then get back to everyday life.

Prevalence of the flu

However, that illusion was shattered when one of my

co-workers had a child catch the flu. 

After a couple of days in the hospital, she passed away.  Everyone was shocked and heart-broken.  How does this happen in our day of advanced

medical care?

Turns out, these deaths aren’t really all that rare.  In the US, during the 2018-2019 flu season

over 35 million people were infected.  Of

those, 16 million sought medical care, half a million were hospitalized, and

over 34,000 people died.  https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html

This was actually a fairly mild year.  In the 2017-2018 season, these numbers were

almost doubled with an estimated 60k deaths due to the flu.  https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm

Just to put that number in perspective, between 2016-2018 each

year there were about 40k deaths due to traffic accidents in the US. 

Who's at risk from influenza?

Of those 60k flu fatalities, the 0-5 age range fared the

best, representing only 0.1% of all fatalities. 

Generally, most diseases target the young and the old, but with our

current influenza strains, the risk increases with age.  Only six percent of flu deaths occur in

people under 50 years old even though they account for nearly 60% of all flu

illnesses.  For this age group, the flu

is generally just an unpleasant, but not fatal, experience.  On the other hand, the 65+ age group

represents only 13% of total flu illness, but 83% of all flu deaths. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm

Clearly, the elderly are at much greater danger from the flu

than the general population.  The reasons

for this get pretty complex, but it is hard to argue with the numbers.

Like the coronavirus, influenza is a virus.  While we have multiple antibiotics to treat

bacterial infections, our viral treatment options are still amazingly

limited.  Because viral reproduction

occurs in a host cell, targeting of viruses is something we still have a long

way to go on.  I believe we will