Florida child with the flu dies, concerns SWFL parents

The flu season had its first death of the season, announced on Monday. The virus took the life of a child in Florida who was not vaccinated. The child was infected by influenza B and did not have an underlying medical condition.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends those six months and older to receive the annual influenza vaccination. However, among the arguments by critics that have deter others is people who received the seasonal vaccination still became sick, and more frequently.

But, experts in the field disagree.

“If you have a 100 percent chance of getting the flu,” Dr. Bruce Lipschutz said, of Millennium Physicians Group, “then decreasing it by 40 percent is still a sizable number.”

Like any virus, the flu will go towards great lengths to survive. New strands emerge each season, which can complicate the effectiveness of the influenza vaccination.

Last year experienced the highest influenza-related moralities in children reported during a single flu season with 172 deaths, according to the CDC. Approximately 80 percent of the deaths were by children that did not receive a seasonal flu vaccine.

“People say, ‘I don’t believe in the flu shot,'” Dr. Lipschutz said, “well it’s not a religion, it’s a science.”

Each year, researchers identify three or four of the most common viruses projected for that season, then devise a vaccination that will protect people against them.

Flu season typically peaks during the coldest months of the year. The child’s death was significant because it occurred before most people are advised to receive the shot, which is before the end of October.

If a child becomes infected with the flu, his or her day-to-day priorities of learning in school and playing with friends will be changed dramatically. “It can be potentially catastrophic,” Dr. Lipschutz said, “[with] severe fever, chills, exhaustion to the point where you can’t even go out for at least five to 10 days.”

The possibility their child may experience that pain has southwest Florida families concerned, such as Robin Platt, who takes care of her grandchildren while her daughter is working.

Platt worries her daughter’s profession in the medical field will make her grandchildren susceptible to the virus at home.

“They’re at risk because they don’t have the immunities built up that most adults do,” Platt said. “They need to have that vaccination.”

Her daughter, Sarah Taylor, agrees. But she plans on having her and her son vaccinated next month.

“I am very cautious when it comes to winter time,” Taylor said, “so I try to take as much precaution as I can.”