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Deadly flu sends scores to area emergency rooms
The virus that caused the deadly ?swine flu? pandemic of 2009 is walloping Kansas City and the rest of the nation once again this season, putting countless patients in intensive care and contributing to dozens of deaths from coast to coast.
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The Kansas City Star has learned of two recent flu-related deaths in this region. One was a patient at St. Luke?s Hospital, a man whose age was not available; the other was a man in his 30s who died while being transported to St. Luke?s.
Many of the deaths and most severe cases this season have been among teens and young and middle-aged adults, rather than the very young and old, the age groups usually most vulnerable to the flu. That?s because the prevalent flu strain so far has been H1N1, which has proved to be dangerous to ?young invincibles.?
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Many of the flu patients admitted to Children?s Mercy have been teenagers, Harrison said. Several patients have been so ill, they?ve been given experimental flu drugs, he said.
?It?s kind of a younger, healthier population that you don?t expect to be having such problems,? Larsen said.
As of late Wednesday afternoon, St. Luke?s had 22 patients with confirmed flu cases, about half of them in intensive care.
Some patients are so ill with flu-related pneumonia they?ve been placed on ECMO machines ? extracorporeal membrane oxygenation ? that serve as artificial lungs. St. Luke?s is a regional ECMO referral center and has received flu patients from as far as Joplin and St. Joseph.
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Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/01/08...#storylink=cpy
The virus that caused the deadly ?swine flu? pandemic of 2009 is walloping Kansas City and the rest of the nation once again this season, putting countless patients in intensive care and contributing to dozens of deaths from coast to coast.
-snip-
The Kansas City Star has learned of two recent flu-related deaths in this region. One was a patient at St. Luke?s Hospital, a man whose age was not available; the other was a man in his 30s who died while being transported to St. Luke?s.
Many of the deaths and most severe cases this season have been among teens and young and middle-aged adults, rather than the very young and old, the age groups usually most vulnerable to the flu. That?s because the prevalent flu strain so far has been H1N1, which has proved to be dangerous to ?young invincibles.?
-snip-
Many of the flu patients admitted to Children?s Mercy have been teenagers, Harrison said. Several patients have been so ill, they?ve been given experimental flu drugs, he said.
?It?s kind of a younger, healthier population that you don?t expect to be having such problems,? Larsen said.
As of late Wednesday afternoon, St. Luke?s had 22 patients with confirmed flu cases, about half of them in intensive care.
Some patients are so ill with flu-related pneumonia they?ve been placed on ECMO machines ? extracorporeal membrane oxygenation ? that serve as artificial lungs. St. Luke?s is a regional ECMO referral center and has received flu patients from as far as Joplin and St. Joseph.
-snip-
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/01/08...#storylink=cpy
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