FORT WAYNE -- While the world prepares for a possible flu pandemic, most Hoosiers are just hoping they don't come down with the annual flu strain. So far, so good, doctors and health officials say.\n"It's pretty mild so far," said Allen County Commissioner of Health Dr. Deborah McMahan. "If we're going to get something, I think it will hit us here in the next week or two."\nBut knowing when the avian flu, which has a 53 percent mortality rate, or another deadly strain will hit the United States requires a more collaborative effort on the local, state and national levels.\nTracking influenza of all kinds, as well as other diseases in Indiana, is the job of 19 disease trackers called epidemiologists from the Indiana State Department of Health. Ten sit in front of computers in secured offices on the fifth floor of the department's downtown Indianapolis offices. Another nine are scattered around the state, including one in Fort Wayne.\nEvery three hours, information about the chief complaints of patients seen in 45 Indiana hospital emergency rooms is sent to the computers. The watchful eyes of the disease trackers note any surges of respiratory complaints; increases in gastro-intestinal, neurological and chest pain; and asthma symptoms.\nBut it doesn't take a hospital visit by sick Hoosiers to alert epidemiologists to the possibility of a problem, said Shawn Richards, an epidemiologist for the state. Input comes from pharmacies.\n"If there's an increase in sales in thermometers or anti-diarrheals" at the drugstores in Fort Wayne, computers note the change, she said.\nAt the same time, computers track weekly reports from 36 high-volume clinics in the state that agree to track trends in symptoms and report their findings. Right now, they are reporting the number of people with flu-like symptoms as well as results from laboratory testing on throat swabs.\nThe throat swabs differentiate only between influenza A and B. But some swabs are sent for further testing to a new state lab in Indianapolis that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has authorized to test for avian flu.\nData coming to the state so far show low levels of the California flu, the most common type this year, Richards said. At the end of January, the CDC reported widespread flu activity in only five states, 13 states reported local activity and 11 had sporadic activity.
\nBetween Jan. 23 and Feb. 6, 89 throat swabs from Lutheran, St. Joseph and Dupont hospitals were tested for influenza; seven came back positive for influenza A, which comprises the California strain.\nDuring the same period last year, 84 swabs were tested and 19 came back positive, said Geoff Thomas, media coordinator for Lutheran Health Network. At Parkview Hospital, 63 samples were tested between Jan. 29 and Feb. 11, with only about five percent coming back positive for influenza A, said spokeswoman Karen Belcher. In February 2005, 595 tests were run, with 37 percent positive.\nDespite the lack of activity locally, McMahan said children who have not yet been vaccinated should still get the flu vaccine.\nMeanwhile, the state's computers keep vigil on Hoosiers' health around the clock. It's the less public part of public health, Richards said, "but a lot goes on around here"
