CINCINNATI — Between winter break, snow days and now illness, many area students have had a lot of time off from school over the past month.Pediatricians said they’re seeing more children coming down with the flu or strep throat.Brenda Taylor brought her daughter to the doctor Friday because she’s been sick for a couple of days.”High fever and chills and sore throat, congestion and cough,” Taylor said of her daughter’s symptoms.Dr. Mark Deis said the number of flu and strep throat cases has shot up over the past week or two.”I’ve been seeing maybe four or five cases, myself, a day, and I think pretty much all of us are having the same experience right now,” Deis said.While flu season technically begins in the fall and ends in early spring, Deis said it tends to have a shorter peak.”You can’t ever really predict when it’s going to hit in a given year, but you can definitely tell when it does hit because you see a spike in the cases,” Deis said.most doctors’ offices can perform quick tests to tell the difference between strep throat and flu, and a child’s symptoms can help physicians make a diagnosis.Sore throats and bellyaches are common with strep throat, while cold symptoms and body aches are more associated with the flu.”If you have cold symptoms with a sore throat, the likelihood that it’s strep is less than 50 percent,” Deis said.getting a flu shot is still good protection, Deis said, although doctors are still seeing children who’ve been vaccinated come down with the flu.Unfortunately, doctors said, those children are still getting just as sick.