Dr. Frank Contacessa told Newsmax on Wednesday people should not be nervous about the flu bug going around.
Contacessa, an internist in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, dismissed hysteria over the term "super flu."
"This really is a sensationalized term," Contacessa said on "The Record With Greta Van Susteren." "This is not a medical term."
"The super flu does not exist in medicine. This is being used to describe the rapidity of onset of symptoms with this particular strain and the speed that it's spread across the country," Contacessa added.
The internist said while cases have been going up, the strain of flu is not more severe than flu bugs of years past.
"The symptoms are not more severe, it's not more life-threatening," Contacessa said. "People should not be nervous. It's a typical flu season so far."
"Keep your hands clean and keep yourself healthy," Contacessa added.
The symptoms are a high temperature, sore throat, fever, aches and chills.
"People typically go from, 'I feel fine' to 'I think I'm coming down with something' to 'I can't move out of bed within a matter of a few hours,'" Contacessa said.
The doctor also cautioned about the efficacy of this year's flu shot.
"It's a very difficult thing to predict, and they're not very good at it," Contacessa said. "On a good year, it's maybe 30 or 40% effective and in a bad year, it's single digit effective.
"It looks like this is going to be a bad year, because this particular strain is different from what they put into the formulation."
Contacessa said he is not advising his patients to get the shot and that he doesn't get the shot.
"Maybe you could make a case for an older person or somebody who has [been] immunocompromised, but for a younger, healthier person, I really don't push it," Contacessa said.
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Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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