More than half the people hospitalized with the flu in Colorado during the most recent season were either under age 2 or older than 70, according to the state’s new reporting system.
Some 964 Coloradans were hospitalized with the flu in the 2004-05 season; 526 of them were either very young or elderly.
The state health department switched from reporting all flu cases to tracking only cases where people were admitted to the hospital during the 2004-05 flu season.
The switch came after the former reporting system was overwhelmed by more than 12,000 cases in 2003-04.
The old method also didn’t give health officials any indication of how sick people were, said Dr. Ken Gershman, state health department epidemiologist.
The state’s novel approach was reviewed in a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention article this week.
CDC officials said Colorado’s system may underestimate flu cases because it is unlikely that everyone admitted to a hospital with respiratory ailments is tested for flu.
Because the system is new, there is no way to compare hospitalizations in 2004-05 with the previous season, in which Colorado was hit by the virulent Fujian strain.
But by one important measure, the most recent season was far less severe: Only two children under age 18 died of flu complications. In the previous season, 12 died.
The only flu deaths specifically tracked by the state are those among children.
Gershman said the CDC was interested in Colorado’s new method “because surveillance for influenza has been an ongoing challenge,” and public health officials are always looking for a better way to do it.
The emergence of avian flu and its threat of growing into a flu pandemic have made monitoring even more important, he said.
“There has been a lot of interest in trying to improve what we do, how we monitor influenza,” Gershman said.
Having hospitals report flu cases to a state agency “could be useful earlier and in a mild pandemic,” Gershman said. But, he added, “anything could get overwhelmed in a big pandemic.”
Staff writer Karen Augé can be reached at 303-820-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com.