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Updated 22 minutes ago
Latasha Haynes was 34 when she nearly died of the flu last year. What started with a little cough and tiredness ended with two blood transfusions and a diagnosis of congestive heart failure a few weeks later.
The flu had damaged the muscles of his heart and the skeletal tissue around them. She survived, but barely, and it took her months to recover.
Haynes, who runs a photography business in Tacoma, Washington, caught the flu in January 2017 and was one of the estimated 30.9 million people who got the flu during the 2016-17 season. She was among the 14.5 million people who saw a doctor because of the virus, and of the approximately 600,000 people hospitalized with influenza, 50,000 of whom, like Haynes, were adults under 50 years old.
The last influenza season was even more deadly than the 2016-2017 season. In a recent report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the flu has killed an estimated 80,000 Americans during the 2017-2018 season, the highest number in decades. In recent years, death estimates ranged from 12,000 to 56,000, according to the CDC. This compares with about 40,000 annual deaths due to road accidents.
Yet, while nine out of ten people in the United States use their seatbelt, less than half of them get a flu shot – the most important way to protect people over six months old. against serious cases of the disease, according to the CDC.
One of the main reasons given by people for not getting the flu shot is that they do not think it's necessary. A study by Rand Corp. unvaccinated adults revealed that about one in four of those surveyed said they did not get the flu shot because they did not think they needed it.
This kind of thinking does not take into account how flu can be deadly for healthy people, said Flor Munoz, an expert in infectious diseases in children, at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston.
"Healthy people can have serious consequences of the flu," Munoz said, citing a study published in 2018 in the journal Pediatrics, according to which half of the children who died of influenza did not suffer from any medical problems underlying.
The vaccine protects not only against diseases, but also against hospitalizations and deaths. If a person vaccinated gets the flu, they are less likely to have a serious case that can lead to pneumonia, brain swelling, multi-organ failure or other serious complications from the virus.
According to the CDC, about 80% of children who die of the flu are not vaccinated and the vaccination can help reduce by 65% the risk of death of an infected child. That's why the American Academy of Pediatrics urged parents in early September to vaccinate their children "as soon as it is available."
Even with the record of 180 deaths last season in children with influenza, it is unclear whether parents will consider the advice of the organization. Less than 60% of children – and only about one third of adults under 50 – have been vaccinated against influenza during the 2016-2017 season.
Robyn Correll is a Washington Post editor.
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