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Texas Health Commissioner: Get The Flu Shot Now

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TheDepartment of State Health Servicesand theTexas Medical Associationboth called for Texans to get their flu shots as soon as possible.Texas Health Commissioner John Hellerstedtsaid Monday he would like to see everyone immunized by the end of October.

"The more people we get immunized the safer the population is," Hellerstedt said.

The last flu season was particularly hard on otherwise healthy kids, Hellerstedt added.

"The United States saw a record number ofinfluenza-relatedpediatric deaths. Texas did not set a record, but we had far too many children die from flu in the 2017-2018 season,” he said. “Sixteeninfluenza-associateddeaths were reported for that season. Thirty-one percent of the children had no underlying health conditions."

Of those 16 deaths, the state only knows the vaccination status of 11 of the children, and 10 of those 11 who died were unvaccinated.

Hellerstedt said it's possible this year's vaccine won't match up perfectly with the strains of flu that circulate this year, but it’s still worth getting.

"We know that the vaccine isn't perfect, but we do know that people who get immunized — even if they getthe influenzasubsequently — they tend to have milder illness, they have definitely less risk of hospitalization and less risk of death, and of course if we could get a very high percentage of people to take the vaccine we might see an overall even more profound reduction in cases,"Hellerstadtsaid.

TheCenters for Disease Controlreports 80,000 people died of the flu nationwide during the last flu season —180 of those who died were children.

TheAmerican Academy of Pediatricsadvises everyone to have their flu shot by Oct. 31.

Bonnie Petrie can be reached at bonnie@tpr.org or on Twitter @kbonniepetrie 

Copyright 2018 Texas Public Radio

Bonnie Petrie is a proud new member of the news team at WUWM. She is a reporter who - over her twenty year career - has been honored by both the Texas an New York Associated Press Broadcasters, as well as the Radio, Television and Digital News Association, for her reporting, anchoring, special series production and use of sound.
Bonnie Petrie
Bonnie Petrie covers bioscience and medicine for Texas Public Radio.