Virtual Medical Centre

Flu vaccine now recommended for school-age kids and teens, too

Offering immunisations to millions more kids will, hopefully, make this season less brutal than the last. More kids immunised means fewer who might spread the virus to those most at risk for serious complications, like babies, toddlers, and the elderly.

Although young tots (from 6 months to 5 years old) are still considered the group of kids who need the flu vaccine the most, the updated guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that all older kids and teens get it, too. That is, as long as enough is available.

That's because the CDC's new recommendations say the vaccine should be given to older children "beginning in the 2008-09 influenza season, if feasible, but no later than the 2009-10 influenza season." The goods news, though: The CDC is projecting 146 million doses of the vaccine – the most ever made available during a single season in the United States.

As the flu season starts to sneak up on us, parents often have a ton of questions about the ins and outs of getting their kids vaccinated.

Here are some of the most frequent inquiries and concerns:

Although the common cold and the flu are often confused, symptoms of the flu can be a lot worse. Granted, most healthy people infected with the flu virus can weather the infection without any problems. But the flu can cause serious sickness in some, especially those considered high risk (like children under 2, senior citizens 65 and older, and anyone with chronic conditions such as asthma or diabetes).

In fact, each year, the highly contagious seasonal bug kills 36,000 people and sends another 200,000-plus (including more than 20,000 kids under age 5) to the hospital. Yet a mere 1 in 5 babies and toddlers (who are especially at risk) receives the annual vaccine, according to the CDC.

If your child has cold-like symptoms along with achiness, fever, chills, and fatigue, don't be too quick to deem it just another cold – it could be the flu or a bacterial infection (like strep throat or pneumonia) that can look like the flu or a cold.

Many of the flu cases reported in the 2007-2008 flu season weren't caused by the exact strains that last season's vaccine targeted. Each year the vaccine is created to combat the three most current strains of the virus – though other strains may crop up at any time (which is what happened last season). Because the vaccine provides protection from only a few of the strains that can cause flu-like symptoms, it isn't a guarantee against getting sick.

Even though last season's vaccine didn't prove to fend off the flu nearly as much as health officials had hoped, the flu vaccine still greatly reduces the average person's chances of catching the flu. And getting vaccinated can still help prevent complications and can make symptoms far more mild – and that's regardless of whether or not you come down with a strain of the virus that isn't part of this year's vaccine.

You've probably heard the controversy about the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal, which was once widely used in many childhood vaccines. Despite the lack of scientific evidence that it causes any harm (specifically, autism), manufacturers began removing thimerosal from kids' vaccines in 1999 to reduce childhood exposure to mercury and other heavy metals.