Hampton Regional Medical Center would like to urge residents to practice prevention this flu season. Health professionals at HRMC recommend if you have a fever or flu-like symptoms, please seek medical treatment immediately. Also, if you are displaying flu-like symptoms use a tissue to cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze. Perform Hand hygiene afterwards (hand sanitizer or hand washing), as well. According to the Center for Disease control, a total of 4,831 influenza cases were reported from 43 counties representing all four DHEC Public Health regions. Influenza A was most frequently reported by clinical labs and Influenza A(H3) was most frequently reported by the public health lab. Compared to the previous week, this is an increase of 1,395 cases (40.6%). In the current flu season, there have been 17,004 influenza cases (16,528 positive rapid antigen detection tests; 476 lab-confirmed tests) reported. The CDC further reports a total of 268 influenza-associated hospitalizations were reported by 51 hospitals. The cumulative hospitalization rate is 16.7 per 100,000. There were 6 laboratory-confirmed influenza associated death reported; however, 3 of the deaths occurred in previous weeks.Due to the increase and severity of flu-related sickness in our area, HMRC is asking our visitors to please consider the safety of our patients when visiting the hospital during this flu season. For the protection of our patients, Hampton Regional Medical Center is limiting visitors during this year’s flu season:
1. No visitors with flu-like symptoms.
2. Only 2 visitors per patient will be allowed.
3. Children under the age of 12 will not be allowed in patient rooms. They are welcome to wait in our waiting rooms with adult supervision.
Once diagnosed with the flu or flu-related illness, please try to stay home to prevent the spread of the illness to others.