USA Today recently had an article that we just had to share with all of our parents (read it here). We don’t share this to scare you, but to encourage you to have your child vaccinated with the flu vaccine every year.
One of the most common myths about the flu vaccine that we see is that only children with health complications die from the flu. A report just released from the CDC (Center for Disease Control) shows that of the children who died from flu-related complications between October 2004 and September 2012, 43% of those children were otherwise healthy, and didn’t have high-risk medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes, certain types of cancer, congenital heart defects or neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy or epilepsy.
The CDC “recommends that all children 6 months or older get the flu vaccine every year, and this report shows that any child can be at risk for severe complications from influenza,” says the report’s lead author, Karen Wong, a CDC medical officer. These findings reinforce that “prevention is the best strategy, and the best strategy we have is vaccination,” she says.
Source: CMG