February 18, 2025- The US is in the throes of an unusually intense and severe flu season, with hospitalization rates topping the levels seen with Covid-19 at some points of the pandemic, according to CNN. On top of the flu infection itself, doctors say they’re seeing large numbers of patients with some of its most devastating complications.
In children, specialists say they’re seeing more than usual come to the hospital with neurologic complications, including devastating brain swelling that leads to tissue death — a condition called acute necrotizing encephalopathy, or ANE. In adults, there are unexpected levels of pneumonia caused by flesh-eating superbug bacteria, according to CNN. MRSA is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a type of bacteria that shrugs off a lot of the antibiotics available to treat it.