Georgia Southern University’s Health Services has diagnosed 564 diagnosed cases of the flu this flu season since last October.

Dr.Brian Deloach said that Health Services has seen fewer flu diagnoses this year than last year, but the year before last had fewer diagnoses than this year.

“Our peak week for flu diagnoses was [the] week ending Feb. 9 when we diagnosed 127 cases,” DeLoach said. “Cases have been slowly declining since then, and we diagnosed 46 cases last week, [the] week ending March 9.”

Health Services has given 1,346 flu shots so far this flu season, and this number includes students, faculty and staff, Deloach said.

DeLoach said that it is recommended that students get their flu shots if they haven’t done so already, even though peak flu season appears to have passed.

“Although peak flu season has hopefully passed, we will still continue to see flu over the next few months,” DeLoach said. “We are still recommending vaccination, especially in high-risk individuals. Flu vaccine is important not only to reduce the individual person’s risk of getting flu, but it is also [important as] it helps develop herd immunity among large groups, which in turn reduces flu transmission in the community.”

DeLoach also denounced the belief of many that flu shots cause the flu.

“The flu shot does not cause the flu,” DeLoach said. “Numerous high-quality peer-reviewed studies support the fact that it does not cause the flu.”

Elizabeth Gross, The George-Anne News Reporter, ganewsed@georgiasouthern.edu