Flu season worst to hit Florida in years, doctors say

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — It seems everywhere people look, someone has the flu or is recovering from the flu.

This year's flu season is already one of the worst to hit Florida in years, according to a doctor who spoke to Eyewitness News.

Doctors usually see the spike in flu cases January, February, even into March, but this year’s spike began in mid-December.

"We're not clear whether it's going to be the largest flu season we've seen in the last decade, but already it's one of the largest," Dr. Scott Brady with Florida Hospital Centra Care told Channel 9's Angela Jacobs.

Brady said the flu vaccine designed to protect people isn’t working very well.

“It was a mismatch, it's a bit of the strains that we're seeing in the community ,and that means if you've gotten a flu shot that you still will have some protection because it's in the same family, but it won't completely prevent the flu in many cases,” Brady said.

“Don't wait on it for a couple days, the medicine can really shorten the duration, but you have to take it in the first 48 hours,” Brady said. “The Centra Care clinics all have a nasal swab that you can detect in five minutes whether you have the influenza, and then they can put you on the right course of treatment, but just don't wait.”

Cox Media Group