JERUSALEM (VINnews) — In a third case of flu-related deaths in Israel within 4 days, Hillel Dachbash, a 19-year-old yeshiva student from the village of Neriah near Jerusalem, died in Shaarei Tzedek of complications from the flu disease he had contracted a few days earlier.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Dachbash, who studied at the Elon Moreh yeshiva, had been sick for a few days and had been treated within his community. On Monday he collapsed and was taken in critical condition to Shaarei Tzedek hospital after undergoing resuscitation in the ambulance. Doctors succeeded in restoring his pulse but after his systems failed and after he was attached to an ECMO machine for a few hours, doctors were forced to declare his death.
On Tuesday morning, a 3-year-old girl with underlying health conditions died from the flu and three days ago, a 14-year old girl, also with underlying health conditions, died in Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer from complications of the flu. At the same time, a 10-year-old girl is in serious condition after suffering kidney failure as a result of flu complications and a 40-year-old man is also in serious condition and attached to a heart-lung machine as a result of complications from flu.
Doctors in Israel have warned that flu is no common cold which is easily treatable and can be overcome by the body, but rather a contagious disease which in rare complicated cases can cause organ failure and death.
Prof. Chagai Levine, head of the Israeli Association of Public Health Physicians, told Israeli site Ynet that “this year, dozens of flu patients have been hospitalized across the country, some requiring intensive care. We’re seeing a rise in morbidity from previous years.”
Israel’s Health Ministry is concerned about the number of people seriously ill with the flu and the low vaccination rate of only 16% of the population. The morbidity rate from the flu has risen significantly from the beginning of the winter compared to the same period last year.
The Director of the Health Ministry, Moshe Bar Siman Tov, called on the public to be vaccinated against the flu and added: This year, the number of people with the flu has gone up tremendously. The flu began earlier this year and it’s rising at a fast rate with a high morbidity rate. There’s a solution – go get vaccinated.”
A tragedy. Young people in the primes of their lives.
On a note both separate and related, 16% vaccination rate is terrible.
Sadly , unlike measles vaccine , the flu shot doesn’t always work
actuslky it does work but the flu bug adapts and changes but not taking it is putting everyone at risk
To clarify.
judith
The flu virus comes in many varieties and evolves constantly. The flu vaccine contains 3 or 4 different varieties that were prevalent in Asia in the prior spring and the experts select those most likely to spread. Sometimes their guess is accurate.
You seem to think you are an expert. No, the measles vaccine does not always work and the vaccine is usually given as the MMR, incorporating mumps and Rubella. The failure rate on those is astronomical.
I have no idea how old you are but I , born in the Fifties can tell you that young people did not take the vaccine commonly until it became an industry with every pharmacy chain pushing it.
Yes, I feel terrible for those that died and especially with no underlying conditions.
I started taking the vaccine after I caught the flu about 28 years ago, even then it was a judgement call by the Physician.THEN.
More Americans died of the flu outbreak of 1918 than died fighting WWI.
Donato: then you are familiar with the polio scare and then Salk’s vaccine. It worked. I’m also from the 50s and I remember it well.