TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — You may have heard of it both online and on television it's a new term called “Flurona." Pediatrician Dr. Nathan Price with Banner University Medical center says he hasn’t seen any cases of flurona, so far this year, but with the current flu season and spike in COVID-19 cases and the omicron variant, it's just a matter of time before combo cases of the viruses start to show up.
"Really it's just two different infections happening at the same time. In the history of infections, it's not terribly different than what's happened before. Viruses are viruses and it's easy to get more than one at once. If you get them both at the same time you may just have mild disease with both of them or you may just get really sick it just depends on the person and situation,” Price said.
Doctors say if you’re not feeling well don’t ignore symptoms that can get worse by the day. Adding that vaccination and testing for the flu and COVID-19 are the key to getting the best treatment, because the symptoms of fever, fatigue, cough, congestion, runny nose and headache are common with both viruses.
"As far as treatments go there are some medicines that you can use to treat influenza and COVID-19. We are certainly seeing more coronavirus cases in children than we did a few months ago. Activity is starting to ramp up and its causing trouble for our kids and it’s happening in adults as well,” Price said.
At this point, there are no solid numbers on case counts in the United States. According to online reports, one of the first flurona cases was found in Israel. There have also been reports in California, Texas and Florida. At this point there are no known cases diagnosed in Arizona.
“The reports that I’ve seen so far have been mild disease is fortunately often what happens. The common version of this infection is a mild infection,” Price said.
