Flu epidemic spreading, health official says Health officials:
Cases more severe than last year The flu is spreading fiercely
across the United States, with more than 40 states reporting
widespread activity in what one of the nation's leading health
officials is calling an epidemic. "If you look at the charts
that the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) put out on
their website, it clearly has gone above that threshold. So we
are into what would classically be described as a flu epidemic,"
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health,
told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Thursday. "It's still on the uptick,"
Fauci added. The season has started earlier, and cases are more
severe than last year, health officials say. The latest Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention flu advisory report, which
covers the week of December 23 to 29, suggests that 41 states
have widespread influenza activity, which was an increase of 31
states from