Five more children died of the flu last week, bringing the season total to 96, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its weekly FluView update.
But for the first time since November 2018, levels of influenza-like illness (ILI) in the United States dropped below the national baseline (2.2%) to 2.1%, after remaining elevated for 21 weeks, making 2018-2019 the longest flu season in recent years.
Typically ILI activity remains elevated for 11 to 20 weeks, with an average of 16. Last week, only 4 of 10 regions reported ILI at or above their region-specific baseline level. The previous week 7 out of 10 regions had elevated ILI.
Only Puerto Rico experienced high ILI activity, and only Kentucky experienced moderate ILI.
Nine states (Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin) experienced low ILI activity, the CDC said.
ILI activity this year peaked in mid-February, at 5.1%. That compares with a low of 3.6% in 2015-16 to a high of 7.5% last year over the most recent five seasons. Last year's high was a post-2009-pandemic record.
Hospitalizations rise
The overall hospitalization rate rose last week to 64.2 per 100,000 population, up from 62.3 per 100,000 the previous week. Adults over the age of 65 had the highest rate of hospitalization (214.1 per 100,000 population), followed by adults age 50-64 (79.7 per 100,000 population) and children age 0-4 (73.1 per 100,000 population).
Among 18,527 hospitalizations, 95.6% were associated with influenza A virus and 3.6% were associated with influenza B virus.
Of lab-tested specimens, 76.2% were influenza A and 23.8% were influenza B. Of subtyped influenza A samples, 23.3% were H1N1 and 76.7% were H3N2.
See also:
Apr 26 CDC FluView
