http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2002/05/06/eline/links/20020506elin017.html

Flu vaccine now recommended for infants

Last Updated: 2002-05-06 9:59:20 -0400 (Reuters Health)

By Suzanne Rostler

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Healthy infants could benefit from the influenza (flu) vaccine during the 2002-2003 season, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Monday.

In the past, only young children at high risk for flu complications, such as those with chronic lung disorders, were recommended to get the vaccine.

However, recent studies have revealed that children under 2 years of age are at risk for hospitalization from flu-related complications, Dr. Robert Baltimore, a professor of pediatrics at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and a member of the AAP's committee on infectious disease, told Reuters Health.

"The rate of disease and the amount of hospitalization (for infants) is really comparable to that of older people for whom the vaccine is recommended," he said.

What's more, inoculating more people against the flu, a leading cause of pneumonia and death in the elderly, would reduce the rate of transmission in the entire population.

Baltimore said that a new, intra-nasal vaccine could be approved in time for the 2002-2003 season and would make inoculating infants easier and less painful. At this point, health experts do not know whether there will be shortages of the flu vaccine.

The flu strikes millions of Americans each year with fever, chills, muscle aches, fatigue and other symptoms that can last 2 weeks or more. Health officials estimate that more than 114,000 people are hospitalized annually from flu-related complications and that about 22,000 people die from the flu each year.

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