The CDC has reported a significant rise in the number of children dying from influenza, including dangerous and rare variations of the virus. There were 280 child flu deaths in the U.S. last year, the highest number aside from 2009-10, during the H1N1 pandemic. The rates of children being vaccinated against influenza have also fallen. Influenza-associated encephalopathy (IAE) is a rare, severe neurologic complication of influenza. It can lead to varying degrees of brain dysfunction. The new report says that 84 percent of children with IAE whose vaccination status was known were not vaccinated. “We don’t always know how to predict which kids are going to have the most severe forms of flu, which is why we recommend the vaccine for everyone,” Dr. Buddy Creech, a pediatric infectious disease physician at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, told NBC. “It’s a misnomer to think that only sickly kids get complications from the flu.” During the high-severity 2024–25 influenza season, 109 pediatric IAE cases were identified; 74 percent of IAE patients were admitted to an intensive care unit, and 19 percent died. Only 16 percent of vaccine-eligible IAE patients had received the most recent influenza vaccine. Doctors recommend influenza vaccination for all children aged over six months to prevent influenza and complications which could include IAE.
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