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Flu Quarantine Ends At Mesa County Jail

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flickr/breatheindigital

Up to nine inmates with influenza at the Mesa County Jail were quarantined for a five-day period that ended earlier this week. 

Heather Benjamin, with the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office, says the ill men were placed in two separate pods, or sections, during that time. 

"Those two pods were quarantined in the sense that no new inmates were moved into those pods and no inmates were moved out," Benjamin says.

She says there’s a medical team at the jail, with someone there 24 hours a day. And, the facility does offer free flu shots to inmates.

Overall, influenza has hit Mesa County hard this season. So far 96 flu-related hospitalizations and one death have been reported by the county.

"In comparison to last year for the entire flu season we had 72 hospitalized cases here in Mesa County,"  Veronica Daehn Harvey, with the Mesa County Health Department, says.

Harvey says this year the flu vaccine hasn't been a great match for the strain of the virus that's circulating.

"And so, that’s the likely culprit for why we’ve seen some more severe influenza cases this year," she says. "Many of the people hospitalized for influenza have been elderly."

The state reports more than 2,500 people have been hospitalized with the illness this season, which runs from late September through mid-May.

That’s the highest number reported since Colorado started tracking cases in 2004. 

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