Medical Briefs

Published: October 6, 2008

More children have died from flu because they also had staph infections, according to a new government report that urges parents to have their kids get the flu shot.

The number of deaths wasn’t high — 73 during the 2006-07 flu season — but there was more than a fivefold increase in hard-to-treat complications. And preliminary figures indicate deaths rose again during this past winter’s flu season.

→The numbers underscore the importance of a new recommendation that all children, from 6 months through 18, get routine flu shots.

→Parents shouldn’t panic, "but it’s an important message to say even healthy children develop complications and die almost before anything much can be done for them,” infectious disease specialist Dr. Gregory Poland said.

→Two doses are recommended each flu season for children aged 6 months to 8 years who have not been vaccinated previously; for older kids, one dose a year is needed.

→Parents should take children to the doctor when they have flu symptoms and signs of other complications, including extreme fatigue, no thirst, or in older children complaints about feeling very ill.

→The flu season puts about 20,000 U.S. kids in the hospital each year.

→More than half the children who died during the 2006-07 flu season were between the ages of 5 and 17.

→Only 6 percent of the children studied who died had been fully vaccinated against the flu.

→The percentage of those who also had bacterial infections jumped from 6 percent to almost 36 percent.

From Wire Services

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