It's the Best Week to Protect Yourself from the Flu

As the flu season picks up, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today announced National Influenza Vaccination Week (NIVW) will be observed December 2-6, 2024, a reminder for most everyone that there’s still time to get a flu shot this season.

National Influenza Vaccination Week is a national awareness week highlighting the importance of influenza vaccination for yourself and others.

A recent study concluded that the risk of secondary influenza infection among unvaccinated household members is approximately 15% to 20% after a person infected with the influenza virus introduces it into households.

The CDC says vaccination is essential for people at higher risk of developing serious flu complications, including pregnant women and young children.

Millions of children get sick with the flu yearly, and thousands are hospitalized.

During the 2023-24 flu season, 206 children died from influenza.

Since flu viruses are constantly changing and protection from vaccination decreases over time, getting a flu vaccine every year is the best way to reduce your risk from any influenza virus. A flu vaccine is the only vaccine that protects against flu and has been shown to reduce the risk of flu illness, hospitalization, and death.

This season, access to flu shots is as close as a community pharmacy, with over 92 million vaccines already distributed this year.

Together, we can use NIVW as a nationwide call to get more people vaccinated against the flu, the more people are protected from the flu, wrote the CDC.