Flu Season 2024-2025

Influenza (flu) is a contagious respiratory illness. It is not the same thing as a stomach flu or a vomiting and diarrhea illness.

How serious is it to get influenza?
Influenza can be very dangerous for children. Each year about 20,000 children are hospitalized from flu complications. Approximately 100 pediatric deaths occur yearly from Influenza, nearly half of whom were previously healthy. Flu illness can vary from mild to severe. It is especially dangerous for children who have certain long-term health conditions.

To protect against influenza, the first and most important thing you can do is to get a flu vaccine for yourself and your child. A 2014 study showed that having a flu vaccine reduced children’s risk of flu-related intensive care admission by 74%. Flu vaccine is updated annually to protect against the flu viruses that research indicates are most likely to cause illness during the upcoming flu season.

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Flu vaccines are among the safest medical products in use. Hundreds of millions of Americans have safely received flu vaccines over the past 50 years, and there has been extensive research supporting the safety of flu vaccines. Flu vaccines are made using strict safety and production measures. There is no thimerosal preservative in any of our flu vaccines.

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No, a flu vaccine cannot cause flu illness. Injectable flu vaccinge is made from ‘inactivated’ virus and nasal flu vaccine is made from a weakened live virus and therefore are not infectious.

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FluMist is a reasonable alternative to the flu shot. Getting FluMist is much better than not getting a flu vaccine at all.