St. Mary’s Medical Center registered nurse Kathy Tigart gives a flu shot to Dorothy Morrison of South Point during a free flu shot clinic on Monday, Jan. 13, 2014, at St. Mary’s Conference Center in Huntington.
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Spring flowers bring spring allergies, but this season also brought the flu to Cabell County.
Cabell-Huntington Health Department Medical Director Dr. Michael Kilkenny said the agency has seen about three times the normal amount of flu cases for this time of year.
The good news is this season’s flu vaccine protects against the strain of flu, H1N1 – also known as swine flu – making its rounds throughout the county. Swine flu caused a pandemic in 2009, but now our bodies have some immunity to the strain and a vaccine was developed.
The typical flu season is usually in late winter.
“I was hoping we had been so good with our immunizations that we had increased our rates so much that we just weren’t going to have a bad flu season,” Kilkenny said. “But it’s just later than usual…
