Essay On Seasonal Flu

This paper will discuss the communicable disease influenza. It will discuss the causes, symptoms, and treatments, as well as the demographics of interest. It will also discuss the determinants of health and how these factors contribute to the development of influenza. Included in this paper will be information on host, agent, and environmental factors. Lastly it will explain the role of the community health nurse in caring for those affected with influenza and the role they play in education and prevention.

For the past ten years, we at Virginia Mason Medical Center have been implementing mandatory influenza vaccination. This is due to the flu vaccination being able to reduce flu illnesses and prevent flu-related hospitalizations. According to the Center for Control and Disease (CDC, 2014) during 2012-2013, an estimated 45% of the U.S population got vaccinated, helping to prevent an estimated 6.6 million flu-related illness, with 3.2 million flu-related medical visits, almost 80,000 hospitalizations and roughly $87 billion dollars in total economic burden. Influenza is extremely contagious and each year on an average 5%-20% of the U.S population get the flu with tens of thousands die from a flu-related illness. Therefore, many health cares setting along with Virginia Mason Medical Center is mandating all their healthcare workers to get the influenza vaccination. Consequently, making annual influenza vaccination requirement for healthcare workers a continuing and debatable health topic. The potential of getting the vaccination have great benefits to healthcare professionals, their patients, and their families by

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “It's estimated that 90 percent of seasonal flu-related deaths and more than 60 percent of seasonal flu-related hospitalizations in the United States each year occur in people 65 years and older “ (2011).The CDC advises that the best way to prevent and control the spread of influenza each year is by the use of vaccinnations. In effort to control and prevent influenza epidemics, the CDC uses the epidemiological process to predict the strain of the virus that will be most relevant to the population and this data is used to formulate influenza vaccinations (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011).

Influenza, also known as the flu, is a highly contagious viral disease that affects the upper respiratory tract. Flu season typically lasts between the months of October and April. Signs and symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, muscle aches, fatigue, runny nose, and headaches. Individuals that are at a high risk of getting the flu include: children under the age of two, persons 65 and older, pregnant women, and persons with a chronic illness. Environment factors can also increase the risk of contracting the flu. Complications can include pneumonia, ear and sinus infections, dehydration, or worsening of chronic medical conditions. The influenza virus could eventually lead to longer hospitalization or death if left untreated. According to the CDC, the best way to prevent the flu is by getting vaccinated each year. Compliance with the vaccination is also important in preventing the flu.

The first, foremost, and easiest way to start prevention is, having the flu shot be mandatory for everyone. Flu shots are given out at health departments, local pharmacies, and many other local places. This makes it easily accessible for the community. The places are also open different hours to help accommodate as well. A lot of workplaces offer to pay for their employees to get their shot as well. They want their employees to be healthy and do not want them to miss work. Another most important way to prevent the spread of germs is through proper hand hygiene and stopping the spread of germs. It is important to wash your hands frequently and keep your hands away from your face. Health care workers live by rules and regulations on proper standard precautions. Standard precautions are the basic level of infection control that is used as a preventative way to help control the risk of bloodborne and other pathogens being transmitted to other people. Every standard precaution is applied to every patient. Health care workers can see anyone from a something as small as a cut or to as major as motor vehicle accident. Each time they see a new patient, they wash their hands and change gloves. Everything needed to protect themselves from germs, pathogens and anything harmful is at their

Before we know it the flu season will be here. Which mean a lot of runny noses and severe coughs, germs spreading from person to person. To help keep the spread of the flu down we need to practice:

Influenza is a common illness in children. Seasonal influenza especially affects children in childcare and schools and school-age children facilitate the spread of influenza within schools, households, and communities. Influenza spreads mainly from droplets made when people sneeze, cough, or talk. Since droplets can travel 30 feet, all children in a classroom are potentially exposed. Influenza is highly contagious and can spread from person to person even before symptoms appear and can be contagious for a week after symptoms appear. Children are most vulnerable to infection and the hospitalization rate of influenza is highest in young children. Influenza outbreaks not only cause thousands of deaths, they lead to complications such as otitis media, sinusitis, and pneumonia. One study showed that influenza vaccination reduced children’s risk of

Influenza is responsible for hospitalizations and deaths in the United States. Prevention through vaccination is one way to circumvent illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths. Those persons who were more susceptible fall into the categories of 6 months to 4 years of age and 65 years and older. According to CDC (2013), the 2012-13 influenza season was characterized as a moderately severe season based on the surveillance data. Regardless of suggestions and encouragements of schools and places of employment for individuals to be vaccinated against the flu, fewer than half the persons in the United States each year are inoculated against this disease. Influenza vaccines are now widely used to reduce the burden of annual epidemics of influenza virus infections (Cowling, et al., 2016).

As painless as the flu may sound it can actually be quite deadly. 55,227 deaths result each year due to the flu. Influenza, otherwise known as the flu, is one of the leading causes for nosocomial diseases contracted in hospital rooms. When being admitted to the hospital with the flu, your body is already below the homeostatic norm and won’t be able to fight off other pathogens that are developed in the hospital sufficiently. The only proper way to shield yourself is to get the influenza vaccine through injection. Influenza is a lot more than perceived and can be more deadly than heard of. Getting a twenty dollar vaccine is significantly healthier and smarter than paying a twenty million dollar bill.

Having a flu policy is the best thing that can prevent anyone from getting the flu in the flu season. I will notify the patients to do the same things that I do in order to prevent them from getting infected. One policy for patients with the flu would be being careful around people who aren’t infected by wearing a mask or avoid shaking

Influenza, an innocent little virus that annually comes and goes, has always been a part of people’s lives. Knowing this, one would not believe that it has caused not one, not two, but three pandemics and is on its way to causing a fourth! The Spanish flu of 1918, the Asian flu of 1957, and the Hong Kong

Paula Sullivan, a seasoned nurse practitioner, discusses how influenza is an infectious disease that takes place “in temperate regions around the world” which results in approximately the death of 500,000 people “annually” worldwide; 226,000 people get hospitalized and 36,000 die from influenza annually in the United States alone (Sullivan). Most of the people who die from the influenza virus are aged 65 years or older and that is usually because other diseases are

CONCLUSION: Flu vaccinations are the most effective method at protecting the public from the flu. WHO organization must predict the correct circulating strain for the yearly flu vaccinations. It is important to encourage people to be vaccinated before the flu season begins.

Seasonal influenza commonly referred to as the “flu” is an acute viral infection caused by the influenza virus that can have possibly devastating effects on a community (“Influenza (Seasonal),” 2014). Seasonal influenza viruses cause annual epidemics that peak during the winter but can begin as early as late fall and last through early spring (“Prevention and Control of Influenza,” 2008). Influenza infections in the US affect a large amount of the US population. On average in the United States 200,000 people are hospitalized due to influenza infections (“Vaccine-Preventable Adult Diseases,” 2016). In addition, the annual death toll in the United States alone related to influenza and its complications is about 20,000 (Fallon, 2013). Though influenza can affect people at any age, the rates of serious illness and death are among the highest in persons aged sixty-five or older (“Prevention and Control of Influenza,” 2008). The disproportionate effect of the influenza infection on older adults calls for public health interventions.

According to Healthy People 2020 a goal of theirs is to “increase immunization rates and reduce preventable infections.” The influenza virus is one of these preventable infections, which can cause serious harm to patients. The influenza virus is known as the “flu.” Everyone in his or her life has had some experience with the flu, whether that is himself or herself or a family member. What if there was a way to ensure people from contracting a strain of the influenza virus? Well, thanks to technology and medical research there is.