Truth Frequency Radio
Oct 30, 2014

CHICAGO (AP)

Hospital doctors and nurses say there are a lot of people turning up at the E-R, thinking they have Ebola.

At a medical conference in Chicago, they’ve been swapping stories — including one about an Ohio woman who thought she had Ebola simply because her husband had worked in Dallas, but not with the Ebola patient.

Then there was a New Mexico woman who sought ER testing for Ebola because she had visited Africa two years ago. And two patients in Alabama were worried they were infected after traveling through an airport in Atlanta, the same city where Ebola patients were treated.

Even though the chances are astronomically higher that people actually have the flu or some other bug, Ebola can’t always be automatically ruled out.

So a patient with the flu could trigger a full-court press in the ER — with the patient being isolated, and ER staff grabbing the hazmat suits.

Doctors say it’s one reason why it’s especially important for people to get their flu shots this year. Fewer flu cases could mean fewer Ebola false-alarms tying up staff and resources in busy emergency rooms.

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Health officials say get your flu shot, critics say no thank you

Although the sickness making headlines these days is the deadly Ebola virus, the Center for Disease Control reports that flu activity appears to be increasing and may rise in the coming weeks.

To many contracting the flu may be viewed as something as common as catching a cold but doctors say it can be dangerous and even deadly.

Fortunately there are proven ways you can protect yourself from the flu.

“The CDC recommends three big items for flu prevention. The first is always the influenza vaccine. The second is taking personal protective measures, washing your hands, covering your cough, things like that. And the third is the use of antiviral medication if you do get sick with the flu,” says Dr. Susan Rehm, an infectious disease expert at Cleveland Clinic.

Health officials report that the flu is primarily spread through the air in droplets from infected coughs and sneezes.

It’s recommended that everyone six months and older be vaccinated against the flu.

The CDC says a flu vaccine reduces cases of the flu as well as missed days of work and school.

Dr. Rehm advises entire families be vaccinated to protect one another.

“We need to be vaccinated for flu every year, for some years the types of strains that are included are the same year after year, but the immune response goes down over time so it’s important to be re-vaccinated every year,” says Dr. Rehm.

How well the flu vaccine works each year varies, but even if you do get the flu, the vaccine can help reduce the severity of symptoms and prevent hospitalizations and deaths.

Critics of the vaccinations say several of the flu vaccines contain neurotoxic ingredients and may cause serious side effects.  In addition, the method in which the FDA decides what vaccine strains for flu vaccines are to be sold is referred to as a guess by those against administering vaccines.  Their concern lies in if the virus mutates or if the strains aren’t correctly selected.

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