Young people, even the generally healthy ones, and pregnant women need to take extra effort to avoid getting the flu, as they are especially vulnerable to a particular strain that has been going around lately.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stated that 61 percent of all flu-related hospitalizations during the current flu season was comprised of people aged 18- 64 years, and only one-third of this have been vaccinated last November. This number presents a dramatic difference from that of last year, in which the 18-64 age group accounted for only 35 percent of flu-related hospitalizations.
This year's flu is being caused by the swine flu or the H1N1 virus, the same one that emerged in April 2009 and caused a pandemic. A small preliminary study, headed by Dr. Cameron Wolfe, an assistant professor of infectious disease at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, found that out of the 55 flu cases the hospital has seen so far, 87 percent were infected with H1N1. The study's findings have been published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
The California Department of Public Health has stated that the flu has already claimed the lives of 278 people in California alone during the 2013-2014 flu season.
Just last week, a 29 year-old woman from Arkansas who was not vaccinated for the flu, contracted the flu and checked herself into the hospital. She was 20 weeks pregnant. She lost her baby in a miscarriage after five days. Three weeks later, the woman died.
The CDC has stressed that influenza accounts for up to 220,000 hospitalizations, and an average of 24,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. To combat the growing spread of the flu, the authorities strongly advise Americans 6 months old and older to get vaccinated. The CDC says in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) that getting vaccinated for the flu this year will reduce by 60 percent the chance of having to get treated by a doctor for the flu.
"Influenza can make anyone very sick, very fast and it can kill," Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC's director, told HealthDay. "Vaccination every season is the single most important thing you can do to protect yourself."
Flu shots take about two weeks to become fully effective. Symptoms of the flu include fever, cough, headache, and muscle ache within the first three to five days of illness. Vaccinations must be done every year because immunity from flu vaccination declines over time, and the strains of the flu virus can change from year to year.
"I want to remind you that the season is not over," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. "There is still a lot of influenza circulating. If you haven't been vaccinated yet, it's not too late for you to benefit."
