Influenza-A leads record respiratory illness spike in Dane County

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – Health officials say that the peak in respiratory illnesses hit Dane County late this year, leaving hospitals and urgent care facilities packed.

“It did start late and it really came on like wild fire,” said Dr. Jim Conway, pediatric infectious disease doctor with UW Health Kids and medical director of UW Health’s immunization program.

UW Health reports this year they are seeing more hospitalizations for the flu than they have in the past three years.

“We’ve seen a gradual creeping of respiratory disease the last few winters but its really hit with a vengeance this particular winter,” said Conway.

Conway said that this year, one particular respiratory illness has been keeping him and his colleagues extra busy.

“In particular we are seeing a lot of influenza-A, including more and more children being admitted into the hospital,” said Conway. “We’ve had a really rapid escalation in respiratory illnesses over the last couple of weeks if been sort of an unusual season.”

The rise in flu hits during a time Conway said less people are being vaccinated for it.

“It’s very concerning that we have seen kind of this broad decrease overall in the upper Midwest ii think some of it was carry over from concerns and questions about Covid vaccines,” Conway said.

Communications Coordinator with Public Health Madison and Dane County, Morgan Finke, pointed out more record numbers that they are tracking.

“Based on the data that we track, emergency room data, we are seeing the peak from the last two years being surpassed for emergency room visits due to the flu,” said Finke.

Graphs from Public Health Madison and Dane County show that in Dane County during the 2023-2024 flu season, the percent of flu tests that came back positive, never exceeded 20%.

However, during this year’s season so far, the graph shows a significant increase, with the percent of tests positive for the flu doubling last season’s numbers.

“We are definitely seeing more flu in the community right now than we were seeing last year,” said Finke.

Based on what Conway has seen in this year’s patients, he said he highly recommends getting vaccinated for the flu for this season if you have not yet.

“What we have unfortunately seen is that people that are unvaccinated are really the ones bearing the brunt of this so almost all the kids we’ve got admitted in the hospital didn’t get a flu vaccine this year,” said Conway.

Health officials said that it is not too late to roll up your sleeve.

“It’s pretty clear that we will keep offering vaccines till may first and depending on how this recent surge looks we may even go later than that,” Conway said.

Finke said that if you have insurance and are interested in getting your flu shot you can reach out to your healthcare provider for more information.

However, if you are over the age of 19 and do not have insurance she said to visit the Public Health Madison and Dane County website to find out where free vaccinations are available.

Conway added that while the season is still underway this year, they are going to start planning for next year shortly.

“So what we really track is what’s going on during the Australian, New Zealand, South Africa and South America during winter season which is our summer, and as we see which strains are circulating we are starting these conversations,” said Conway.

By studying what is happening in the winter months across the globe, he said doctors can work together to identify what to anticipate in upcoming flu seasons.

“We are looking at what circulated there,” said Conway. “We tell the pharmaceutical companies in the next couple of weeks that these are what we are going to expect the strains to be here next winter.”

He said this process is one way medical professionals can get a head start on creating the right vaccines for the following year.

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