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What you need to know as flu cases continue to rise

It's something that's happening both in Arkansas and around the country-- flu cases are rising and now pharmacists are prepping for potential patients.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — It's a trend that's happening both right here in Arkansas and around the nation-- flu cases are back up. 

It's a virus that we haven't seen much of for the past two years since COVID-19 began. 

Some pharmacists said they've heard about the flu spreading in the area, but it hasn't really hit their community just yet. 

Despite that, Anne Pace owner of Kavanaugh Pharmacy, said she's seen an uptick over the past week.

"What we can see right now is those tell tale flu signs," she said.

According to Pace, things are always busy at Kavanaugh Pharmacy and recently that foot traffic has included something that we haven't seen in quite some time-- flu testing.

"We just haven't seen that for probably two years and so people aren't really prepared for it," she said.

According to Pace, that preparedness she mentioned applies to the pharmacy side of things. 

For example, her pharmacy realized that their Tamiflu stock was low when more people began coming in with prescriptions for the medicine last week.

"When I called around yesterday trying to find some liquid, a lot of people's have expired and hadn't had any. So I recommended to them, you may want to get some ordered," Pace said.

She said they're mainly seeing it in school-aged children and that she's already hearing about multiple classes having outbreaks.

"Part of the reason we're seeing this is because we've taken masks off and we're seeing it in kids because we don't have those masks on, and so that's great. Kids need to get back to not having masks but we're going to start seeing all of those viruses coming back," Pace said.

That's what the numbers are showing too, the flu virus is rising in young kids, according to the Department of Health's weekly flu report. 

State Epidemiologist, Mike Cima, agreed and said students taking masks off in schools could be contributing. 

"March is still respiratory virus season, and if those particular interventions aren't being followed then it's possible to become sick with the flu," he said.

While certain pharmacists are seeing the firsthand impact, Cima said the state overall is having a 'minimal' spread. Flu cases aren't required to be reported in Arkansas, so this is based only off of information that they're given.

But as we head into spring months, health officials believe cases will go down.

"In general we would expect flu, at this point in the year, for it to continue to decrease and really dip below background levels during the warmer months," Cima said.

As a reminder, the most common symptoms for the flu are high fever, exhaustion, and sometimes a sore throat too. 

Most pharmacists are able to provide rapid flu testing, so if you have symptoms you are concerned about you can get diagnosed quickly.

   

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