Four Oahu nursing facilities have been hit with flu outbreaks since last week, leading to restricted visits and — in one case — a temporary ban on accepting new patients.
"We’re calling them extremely limited outbreaks," said Linda Spaulding, an infection control consultant who has seen four flu cases each at two senior-citizen facilities where she works.
The first case at the Aloha Nursing & Rehab Centre in Kaneohe was reported Jan. 5, followed by another case Wednesday and two more there Friday, Spaulding said. She declined to identify the other facility but said the first of its four cases was reported Friday and was followed by the rest over the weekend.
Both facilties have fewer than 200 patients, Spaulding said. And both are asking visitors not to come to the units that contain flu patients, Spaulding said.
"We’re trying to stop it within the building," she said. "If you don’t get it under control within four, five, seven days, you could be up to 10, 12, 14-plus cases — plus some of your staff getting sick."
The outbreaks include five cases at the Ann Pearl Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center in Kaneohe, which closed new admissions Thursday but resumed accepting new patients Sunday, said Chief Operating Officer Nadine Smith.
"You’ve got such a vulnerable population you’re caring for that you want to eliminate exposure," Smith said. "You don’t want to risk people from the community coming in."
At the Hale Nani Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, on Pensacola Street, three out of the 277 residents have come down with the flu — a number "that’s a little high for this time of the year," said Assistant Administrator Laura Agustin.
The patients all live on different floors where "they’re in isolation and the whole floor is isolated," Augustin said. "No one is coming down for activities, and therapy is being done up on the floor instead of them coming down to the therapy gym."
The number of cases at four different facilities is not unusual during flu season, said state epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park.
But they are hitting seniors who, along with young children, represent the populations most vulnerable to flu, Park said.
"Who are the most vulnerable? It’s going to be the extremes in age — the very young and the very old, especially the very old who are all together in one place in nursing homes," Park said. "When someone comes in sick, it spreads like wildfire through the entire community there."
Park could not immediately say whether the state Department of Health has reports of more than four Oahu nursing facilities reporting flu cases.
"This time of year, we definitely hear of a few cases here and there from nursing facilities across the state," she said. "If they follow proper protocols, things calm down quickly. So far, we haven’t heard of an outbreak that’s just ongoing."
Park repeated her plea for people to get flu vaccinations to prevent spreading the virus to the young and seniors.
As of Dec. 27, 100 deaths during the current flu season in Honolulu were tied to pneumonia or influenza, according to the Department of Health. There was a total of 961 deaths from any cause during that period.
"A good portion of pneumonia deaths are probably related to the flu," Park said.
Also as of Dec. 27, 856 specimens have tested positive for influenza viruses, according to the Health Department.
Twenty percent of the positive tests were among people 65 or older.
