CDC: Mild winter sets new flu record
Posted on: 6:30 pm, May 30, 2012, by Nick Dutton, updated on: 04:13pm, May 30, 2012

By Miriam Falco, CNN Medical Managing Editor

(CNN) ? Now that summer has unofficially begun, the Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention is closing the books on the past flu season.

Anyone who got the flu during the 2011/2012 influenza season might disagree, but according to the CDC, the past flu season ?began late and was mild compared to most previous seasons? for which they have data.

According to the CDC statement, this latest flu season set a new record for having the lowest and shortest peak for flu-like illness since the agency started keeping track.

?This is the first time since CDC started this kind of influenza-like-surveillance (ILI) that the percentage of patient visits for ILI was elevated for only one week of the season,? said Dr. Joseph Bresee, chief of the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch of the CDC?s Influenza Division, in a statement on the CDC website....