Get yourself, your children vaccinated for the flu

The push is kicking into high gear to encourage families to get flu vaccines, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dubbing this week “National Influenza Vaccination Week” and Tuesday in particular “Children’s Flu Vaccination Day.”

Dr. Bakari Morgan, a pediatrician with the Atlanta-based Kids Health First Pediatric Alliance, said he has not yet seen a case of the flu this season, but it’s just a matter of time.

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The holidays are a chance for the flu bug to circulate - by kids here or by those who travel where the bug may be moving.

MORE: How to prevent spreading the flu

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While many families are thinking about the fast-approaching holiday break from school, doctors say it’s also a good time for parents to think about ways to prevent their children from returning to school only to catch — and spread — the flu.

Morgan said the holidays are a chance for the flu bug to circulate — by kids here or by those who travel where the bug may be moving.

Children, on average, miss five days of school a year due to cold and flu, according to the national Parent Teachers Association.

Earlier this year, the CDC expanded the recommended age for children to get the flu vaccine to six months through 18 years. Morgan said he’s noticed an uptick in the number of kids getting flu vaccines since the CDC expanded the recommended age range.

“Kids are at high risk because they are around hundreds of other kids and it only takes one kid to be sick and then it spreads like wildfire,” Morgan said. “The shot is a whole lot better than getting the flu.”

HOW A FLU MOVES

• Studies show that a person can infect others from about one day before becoming sick to about five days after developing symptoms. People are generally most contagious when they have a fever.

• The flu is spread through droplets coughed and sneezed into the air — up to 3 feet. The droplet hangs in the air. You breathe it in, and it’s gotcha.

• Sneezing away from someone only flings it toward your other colleagues. Best to sneeze into a tissue, not your hands.

• The virus can also be picked up when droplets fall on a hard surface like a computer or copy machine, where the germ can stay active for a few minutes.

• It’s also spread through hand-to-hand contact. When in doubt, get to the sink, or better yet, rub alcohol-based sanitizer, which is more effective than scrubbing your hands with soap and water for 60 seconds. “And who washes their hands for 60 seconds? No one,” says Dr. Robin Dretler, an infectious disease specialist at DeKalb Medical Center.

Source: CDC and Dretler

WHO SHOULD GET VACCINATED?

• Children age 6 months up to their 19th birthday

• Pregnant women
• People 50 and older

• People who live or care for those at high risk for complications from flu, including health care workers

ABOUT THE FLU VACCINE

Each vaccine contains three influenza viruses. The viruses change each year based on international surveillance and scientists’ estimations about which types and strains of viruses will circulate in a given year. About two weeks after vaccination, antibodies that provide protection against virus infection develop in the body.

Source: CDC