Health agency urges early flu vaccinations,
Miami Herald
The flu was everywhere last year. A Centers for Disease Control doctor said the past flu season was one of the deadliest.
So the CDC is urging people to act now, just before the October start of the 2018-19 flu season, and get vaccinated. That advice applies even to people who delayed a few months into the previous flu season and were vaccinated earlier this year.
Some of the age ranges for certain vaccines have been lowered and some vaccines were reformulated to better prevent currently circulating viruses.
Getting a vaccine doesn’t mean you won’t get the flu, but if you do get sick it could be less severe, experts say.
A 2007 CDC study found that the flu vaccination significantly reduced a child’s risk of dying from influenza. The study analyzed data from four flu seasons from 2010 to 2014 and found that “flu vaccina- tion reduced the risk of flu-associated death by half, or 51 percent, among children with underlying high-risk medical conditions and by nearly two-thirds, 65 percent, among healthy children.”
Vaccines to fight the flu can also protect women during and after pregnancy and protect a baby after delivery, the CDC said.
The push to take the flu seriously is especially relevant given the severity of the recent season. Vaccines are available at pharmacies and most doctors’ offices.
“The 2017-18 season was the first season to be classified as a high severity across all age groups,” the CDC reported. The flu-like-illness activity increased in November, “reached an extended period of high activity during January and February nationally, and remained elevated through the end of March,” the CDC reported.
Adult deaths from the flu are not nationally notifiable, the CDC said, but children’s cases are tabulated. The number of pediatric deaths attributed to the flu, as of Aug. 25, was 180—the highest since 171 died during the particularly severe 201213 flu season.
Of the 180 children who died in the past year, 80 percent had not been vaccinated during the season, the CDC said.
In addition, the duration of cases at or above the national baseline was 19 weeks, “making the 20172018 season one of the longest in recent years,” the CDC said.
According to the CDC, flu viruses are most common in fall and winter. Influenza activity starts to increase in October and November. The peak of flu comes sometime between December and February, but the season it can last as late as May.
“It is not possible to predict what this flu season will be like,” the CDC says “While flu spreads every year, the timing, severity, and length of the season varies from one season to another.”