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Pediatric flu deaths – the deaths of children under the age of 18 from influenza – have been on the increase in recent years. Last year’s flu season saw 183 U.S. children die from the flu or its complications. That’s double the number from two years prior, and the highest total since 2009. Last year, three Mississippi children died from seasonal flu.
• Almost all children who die from flu are unvaccinated. On average, 80 percent of children who died from flu in recent years had not had a seasonal flu shot. Flu vaccination is the most effective flu protection known. For children and adults, it can lower the risk of getting the flu, make illness less severe, and reduce the risk of hospitalization and death.
• Young children need protection from adults around them. Children younger than six months old can’t be protected by flu vaccination, so it’s essential that family and caregivers around them take precautions against flu. Get vaccinated, practice preventive hygiene, and stay away from infants and others if you are ill.
Get flu vaccinations for children at any county health department, your physician or a pharmacy as soon as you can for best protection this season.
