Central Kansas hospital identifies case of ‘flurona’ — COVID-19 and the flu — in patient
A central Kansas hospital is treating a patient with “flurona” — having both the influenza and coronavirus at the same time — in one of the first identified cases in the state during the latest wave of the pandemic.
During a meeting of medical professionals hosted by the University of Kansas Health System Wednesday morning, Heather Harris, the medical director for Hays Medical Center, said the hospital is treating 23 COVID-19 patients, including five in its intensive care unit. One was diagnosed with the combination of COVID-19 and the flu on Tuesday night, she said.
“That’s going to ramp up some illness as well,” Harris said, adding that all but one of those with serious illness have not been vaccinated.
“Flurona” is not a real illness — it is simply the state of having both COVID-19 and the flu at the same time. Reported cases of patients experiencing both illnesses have begun popping up again around the world as some health care experts again warn that both may be contracted simultaneously — especially those who have not been vaccinated for either.
Having both illnesses is not new. Infections of both respiratory ailments were noted as early as 2020, according to a June study in the journal Systematic Review. Approaching fall 2021, doctors and experts began to warn of a potential “twindemic” of both the flu and coronavirus if people were not vaccinated for both.
COVID-19 and the flu, both respiratory infections, can both cause fever, cough, shortness of breath, muscle pain, diarrhea, headache, sore throat and fatigue, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
An infection of both can lead to serious complications, doctors say, especially the unvaccinated and the vulnerable, that the respiratory illnesses could be “catastrophic” to the immune system.
But health experts are also saying that a double infection in previously healthy individuals, especially ones vaccinated, may not make the COVID-19 case worse.
“I expect to see plenty of co-infections (of flu and COVID-19) going forward, but I don’t see anything that suggests it makes COVID infections worse,” Dr. Frank Esper, a physician at the Cleveland Clinic Children’s Center for Pediatric Infectious Diseases, told USA Today. “Those are two viral pathogens that we actually have medicines for.”
