‘TIS the season for the sniffles, with health professionals predicting winter weather will see more people reaching for the tissues.
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Kooringal Pharmacy co-owner Justin Smith said he and his staff have already seen an increase in residents coming in to seek relief from flu symptoms.
But more concerning has been a trend of the “100-day cough”, a persistent viral cough which is rising in local prevalence and helped along by cold weather, he said.
“We’re also seeing a bit of a resurgence in whooping coughs and other coughs,” Mr Smith said.
The pharmacist said there were record numbers of people getting the flu vaccine across Wagga, however, it was not a one size fits all protection from winter illness.
“There’s also been an increase in the uptake of the vaccine, this year we have had over 100,” Mr Smith said.
“Even if they have had the flu vaccine you can still get it so use your common senses.”
Mr Smith also said there were rising instances of working people coming in his pharmacy seeking relief, with evidence that workplaces without easy access to sanitizing facilities were some of the worst culprits for spreading colds and flu.
Murrumbidgee Local Health District public health unit director Tracey Oakman said a easily caught cough or cold can often be a precursor to the region’s flu outbreak.
“It’s somewhat to do with RSV, which is a respiratory syncytial virus, another virus we get which gives us cold and flu-like symptoms,” she said.
“We see that about six to seven weeks before a flu outbreak starts happening.”
Despite perceptions that influenza was a winter illness, Mrs Oakman said peak times for the illness were August and September.
“At the moment we really haven’t seen any increase in presentations to our emergency departments since the winter, and that pretty much is mirrored across the state as well,” she said.
“We are predicting we will see an increase in influenza illnesses over the next couple of weeks.”
There was still a narrow window for people to get the influenza vaccine and mitigate their chance of catching this season’s flu, Mrs Oakman said.
“It does take between two and three weeks to be effective in your body,” she said.
The latest Australian Influenza Surveillance Report, tabled by the Department of Health, said this season’s flu vaccines "appear to be a good match for circulating virus strains”.
