Flu deaths in kids reach 42

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 (UPI) -- Federal health officials said Friday at least 42 children have died from complications related to the flu as the disease has now become widespread in 36 states.

"This is very sobering and very worrisome to us," Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said during a news briefing.

Gerberding noted there may be more child deaths that have not been reported to the CDC. She encouraged state health officials to report any influenza-related deaths among children directly to her agency.

Flu cases are now widespread in 36 states, including California, Colorado, Nebraska, Texas and Virginia. Cases have been reported in all 50 states and it could get worse in some states, Gerberding said.

On the other hand, she noted, there are preliminary indications the outbreak is leveling off in some states that were hit hard early on and "it is too soon to predict how this (winter's flu season) will turn out."

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association in Washington, DC, said the number of deaths in children "is concerning." It's difficult to know whether this is out of the ordinary, but "I am personally concerned and believe the medical community needs to be very vigilant on this one," Benjamin told United Press International.

Parents should be more attentive to their children's symptoms if they develop anything that appears to be a cold this winter, Benjamin advised. "We're pretty cavalier about it but this is not the year to be cavalier," he said.

Gerberding said the flu can generally be distinguished from a cold by sudden onset, fever, muscle aches and fatigue. Colds usually don't cause those symptoms.

Parents should seek prompt medical attention if their child is having trouble breathing, has a high temperature that persists for four days, or their skin turns blue, Gerberding said. Additional reasons to see a physician include if the child develops altered mental status, including seizures lethargy or irritability, or if the flu symptoms go away and come back worse as this is often a sign of a secondary bacterial infection. Additional information can be found on CDC's website: www.cdc.gov.

The CDC is continuing to investigate the nature of the deaths in the children and expects to release a report as soon as later today.

Of the 42 children, 55 percent were less than 5 years old, Gerberding said. About 40 percent of the children had underlying medical conditions that may have made them more vulnerable to serious complications from the flu.

The CDC doesn't yet have vaccination information on all the children but Gerberding noted that several of the children had not received the vaccine and several had not received more than one dose. The vaccine is generally given to children in two separate doses several weeks apart.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced last week that it had purchased an additional 150,000 doses of pediatric vaccine and expects it to be ready by January. "When that comes in we definitely need to make sure that gets out and distributed and people use it," Benjamin said.

The most predominant strain of flu virus continues to be the Fujian strain -a relatively new variant that emerged too late to be included in this year's vaccine supply.

The vaccine still may offer some protection from the Fujian strain and at this point it can't be determined for certain whether the new strain is causing more severe illness or deaths than previous flu seasons, Gerberding said.

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Steve Mitchell is UPI's Medical Correspondent. E-mail sciencemail@upi.com