Mobile County has logged 1,074 confirmed flu cases so far this season, according to the Mobile County Health Department’s Infectious Diseases & Outbreaks division — a figure drawn from rapid flu tests at local hospitals and health department facilities.
The latest tally represents roughly 300 more cases than the previous report, but health officials cautioned against reading too much into the jump. Barbara Gibbs, the nurse leading the ID&O division, said weekly counts swing considerably depending on how quickly providers across the county file their reports, which can make an increase look steeper than it is.
Mobile County Faring Better Than Most of Alabama
For all the local cases, Mobile County remains the least-affected region in the state for influenza-like illness. State health department data listed every other district under significant influenza activity — Mobile County was the only one spared that designation.
The picture is also brighter than a year earlier: at the same point in the prior season, case counts were nearly double what they are now.
Vaccine Working ‘About Half’ the Time
Nationally, early estimates from the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report suggested the 2018-19 flu vaccine cut the risk of getting sick enough to see a doctor by roughly half — and performed even better in children, where effectiveness topped 60 percent.
Federal surveillance data showed clinical labs tested more than 536,000 specimens for flu between late September 2018 and early February 2019, with about 10 percent coming back positive — overwhelmingly influenza A.
Health officials continued to stress vaccination as the most effective defense, with antiviral medications as a secondary tool. The flu shot is available at all of the health department’s Family Health locations as well as its Urgent Care facility in Midtown Mobile.