Flu season has gotten off to an early start in Allegheny County.

The county Health Department announced yesterday that two people have tested positive for Type A influenza and that tests are pending on 13 other possible cases.

"It is earlier than usual," said spokesman Guillermo Cole. "Most years we see our first confirmed cases in December." Last flu season, the county's first case wasn't reported until mid-January.

A 66-year-old West View woman was hospitalized with the respiratory infection and has since been recovering at home. A 21-year-old Bethel Park woman was treated by her doctor as an outpatient.

On Monday, experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted that influenza season began earlier this year than it has in nearly three decades.

The CDC says most of the cases reported so far have been of a strain that is not covered by this year's flu shot.

About 85 percent of the circulating influenza virus has been a strain called A-Fujian-H3N2, which resembles A-Panama-H3N2, one of the three vaccine strains in the flu shot. The other strains are the Type A-New Caledonia and Type B- Hong Kong strains.

The tests performed on the local women cannot identify the subtype or strain of the virus, Cole said.

Health officials encourage people, especially those at high-risk of flu complications, to get vaccinated.

The high-risk population includes people 50 and older, anyone with a chronic medical condition; pregnant women and healthy children from six months to 23 months of age.