Infectious Disease Expert Available: Flu Season, COVID-19 Variant and other Respiratory Viruses

Newswise — In the United States, flu season usually occurs in the fall and winter, and while influenza viruses spread year-round, most of the time flu activity peaks between December and February. The overall impact of the flu varies from season to season.

During the 2022-2023 flu season in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s preliminary data estimated 26 to 50 million people became ill, there were 12 to 24 million visits to a health care provider and 300,000 to 650,000 hospitalizations.

As we enter this year’s flu season, health experts are also closely monitoring several other respiratory viruses, including pertussis, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and the new COVID-19 variant, BA.2.86 (https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/whats-new/covid-19-variant.html).

UC San Diego Health physicians are urging the community to take preventative actions and consider annual influenza (flu) vaccination and, to those meeting criteria, the updated COVID-19 and new RSV vaccines, especially for vulnerable patient populations at high risk of developing serious health complications, such as people over age 65, adults with certain chronic health conditions and pregnant women.

Francesca Torriani, MD, infection prevention and infectious disease specialist at UC San Diego Health, is available to talk about preventative measures, symptoms and treatments for respiratory viruses, as well as:

Common signs and differences of the flu and respiratory viruses, like COVID-19Flu and COVID-19 vaccination criteria

Learn more about flu shots and COVID-19 vaccines at UC San Diego Health.

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Biography :

Francesca J. Torriani, MD, is a professor of clinical medicine in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of California, San Diego. She sees patients in the Owen Clinic and the infectious diseases clinic. She also cares for people during hospital stays.

Dr. Torriani is medical director of the UC San Diego Infection Prevention and Clinical Epidemiology and the tuberculosis control units at UC San Diego Health. In collaboration with Atlas Public Health, she has been instrumental in creating an extensive electronic microbiology surveillance and pharmacy utilization program called Guardian that allows for internal data mining, surveillance, unit-specific antibiogram production, and external reporting of contagious infections to San Diego Public Health and to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) of Healthcare Associated Infections (HAI).

Since 2010, Dr. Torriani has served on the Metrics Group for CA HAI Reporting, an independent group of experts discussing best standards and methods for HAI reporting in California. 

She is fluent in five languages: Italian, French, German, Spanish and English.