Emergency rooms seeing fewer flulike symptoms

Swine flu appears to have been cut in half in Virginia.

About 8 percent of people visiting emergency rooms across the state reported flulike illness, down from a high of 15 percent three weeks ago, according to the Virginia Department of Health.

“It looks like we’ve gone over a hump,“ said Dr. Marsh Cuttino, an emergency-medicine specialist with HCA Virginia Health System, which operates six Richmond-area hospitals. “We’re back almost to our normal levels.“

In central Virginia, the percentage of people going to emergency rooms with flulike illnesses has dropped to 9 percent, said Dr. William Nelson, Chesterfield Health District director.

“It is very definitely going in the downward direction week by week,“ Nelson said.

Historically, influenza tends to come in waves, health experts say. “There’s always a chance there could be another one coming along,“ Cuttino said.

Vaccine now has been made available to nearly one-third of the state’s at-risk population.

Just more than 1 million doses of H1N1 vaccine have been sent to vaccination sites in Virginia, the state Health Department reported yesterday. That’s 25 percent more than the state had received by the end of the previous week.

More than 3.5 million people, out of the state’s population of 7.7 million, fit in the groups with the most urgent need for the vaccine, officials said.

“The people of Virginia may be breathing a sigh of relief as more people get vaccinated,“ Nelson said. “That’s a good thing.“

Influenza is a respiratory infection caused by a variety of flu viruses, and the H1N1 version has attacked young people heavily.

So far, 21 people have died of laboratory-confirmed H1N1 influenza in Virginia, the state Health Department said.

Swine flu has sickened about 22 million Americans since April and killed nearly 4,000, including 540 children, according to federal estimates released yesterday.

Peter Bacqué is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.