Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 19, 1991                   TAG: 9103190044
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ATLANTA                                LENGTH: Short

CDC: WINTER FLU SEASON WAS MILD

Flu Outbreaks In 47 States! Three Virulent Strains! Millions Stricken!

True enough. But according to federal health officials, the winter of 1990-91 has been among the least severe influenza seasons in two decades.

"It's been an incredibly slow flu year," said Dr. Joe Kent, a medical epidemiologist with the influenza branch at the federal Centers for Disease Control. "It's one of the lightest we've had in 20 years."

CDC researchers don't keep score of each flu case in the United States. Most cases are never reported. But the Atlanta-based agency does monitor trends in flu activity on a state-by-state basis, and this winter there doesn't seem to have been a lot of it.

Forty-eight states have reported confirmed or suspected flu cases this winter, but only one has reported an outbreak since late January, the CDC reported last week.

One reason may be that this winter's dominant flu was a relatively mild type.

While some isolated cases of flu types A-H1N1 and A-H3N2 have been reported, the vast majority of cases have been the third major flu type, Type B. And it, historically, goes easy on older people, who are at greatest risk of serious illnesses or death from flu.

Another factor in the light flu season may be this year's flu vaccine, which was a good match for the actual viruses floating around the United States, researchers said.