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This year's seasonal flu strain is the same as last year's. But pediatricians recommend getting vaccinated again this year.
This year’s strain of seasonal flu is the same as last year’s, but the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends most children get the vaccine again this year.
Flu shots provide optimal protection against the seasonal and highly contagious virus for only six to 12 months, so parents are advised to take kids in for another round of vaccinations before flu season kicks in later this year. The good news is, some kids might only need a single dose of the vaccine, rather than the two separate doses required last year and the year before. Continue reading »
Boy with flu? Look out other boys.
School administrators are trying to figure out the best approach to preventing a school-wide flu pandemic. Closing school, as all families with school-age kids on the East Coast, Midwest, Upper Midwest … oh, yes, even in the South know, can put families in a bind and wreak havoc on curriculum.
So, researchers have become very interested, since the H1N1 outbreak two years ago, in knowing how flu spreads.
A new study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concludes a boy who contracts the flu doesn’t put all of his classmates at equal risk. Continue reading »
Swine flu and h1n1 vaccines are still relevant.
A three-year-old girl in the U.K. was checked into the hospital when, over Christmas, a bad cough turned into a terrible fever. Two days later, Lana Ameen was dead from swine flu.
Ameen’s mother, Gemma, believes her daughter’s general good health is what wound up bringing about her death. Continue reading »
UK authorities encouraging at-risk groups to get vaccinated for H1N1.
Though I love the holidays, yesterday was a welcome day, indeed. For yesterday the kids went back to school. And I don’t know about your household, but ours can barely survive two straight weeks of round-the-clock kiddie time. But this morning I read an article that made me wonder just how excited I’d be right now if I lived in England.
With cases of influenza extremely high, United Kingdom authorities are worried that the same thing will hold true with cases of H1N1, especially now that kids are returning to school. Authorities are bracing for what they fear might be a tremendous spike in the epidemic.
The 25 year old mother had not been vaccinated for the swine flu.
A pregnant mother of four is in the fight for her life. Fallon Devaney, 25, was admitted to the hospital last week after experiencing shortness of breath and flu-like symptoms. She was immediately diagnosed with swine flu and checked into the intensive-care unit, where she was placed into a medically induced coma as doctors work feverishly to save both her life as well as the life of her unborn child.
The Daily Mail reported yesterday that since her arrival, Devaney’s condition has actually worsened. Her doctors fear that she’s contracted pneumonia. Her mother, Linda Fearney, has been told by doctors that her daughter and her unborn grandchild could both die. The 46 year old woman told the Daily Mail, ”It’s getting to the stage we had feared and the baby is taking a lot of her strength. The doctors have said they might need to do something about it to save Fallon. If she can’t fight it because she’s carrying the baby then we have a very hard decision to make.” Continue reading »
It was a year ago this week — the last week of school, for us — that the kids in my older daughter’s classroom started falling ill left and right with a strange stomach virus that included coughing and fever. It stood out because it was so unusual to see so many kids out that last week of school. Now I wonder if it wasn’t that early first wave of H1N1 going through.
Last spring was the first time we’d ever heard of novel influenza A (H1N1), as it’s officially called, also known as swine flu when it burst onto the scene in Mexico (though experts say it may have actually been born in the U.S.). There were several hot pockets around the country during the spring and summer, but the fall was when H1N1 hit the nation in earnest.
Like a lot of people, the recent Swine Flu epidemic totally freaked me out. Not only was I concerned that my child might contract the virus, but I was also leery of the vaccine intended to prevent it. While I am not an anti-vaccine proponent by any stretch of the imagination, I do have what I consider to be a healthy fear of injecting untested substances into my child’s body. As it turns out, my 9-year-old contracted H1N1 before the vaccine became available and I was therefore spared having to make the decision of whether or not to vaccinate her against it.
But while I may have breathed a sigh of relief at having dodged that particular needle, some parents are actually lining up to have their kids injected with a brand new and untested H1N1 vaccine. Despite an informed consent form that details potential side effects including nerve pain, convulsions, neurological disorders and autoimmune diseases, some parents in Australia are allowing doctors to test a new GlaxoSmithKline H1N1 vaccine on their children. Continue reading »
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