In the Miller and Highmore area it's no longer influenza.  Doctor's say that's finally peaked and the numbers are starting to come down, but a complication of the flu is now surging.

We talked with Dr. Michelle Turner with the Avera Hand County Memorial Hospital and Clinic in Miller and she says the two worst things going around there are sending people to the bathroom and the other to the hospital.

Gastroenteritis (the stomach flu) is hitting hard and in all age groups from little kids to the nursing home in the Miller and Highmore area.  The nausea, vomiting and diarrhea is short lived,12 to 24 hours, but brutal when you have it.

Family Medicine Physician Michelle Turner says, "The hospital staff is struggling to fill up empty shifts when someone calls in sick because there's been a lot of it."

She says there's been less influenza cases in Hand County, but now they are seeing more pneumonia in people who are getting over the flu.

Dr. Turner says, "The majority of people with pneumonia is the elderly crowd. They are just not fighting it off the flu as well as they should and then getting that secondary infection."

Dr. Turner says they have had to hospitalize a couple of children for pneumonia, but it is typically the older folks who are worn down, tired and already sick and not taking care of themselves who end up catching what's going around. And in this case that is pneumonia.