Thousands of people die each year from the flu and doctors are again stressing the importance of everyone getting vaccinated this year.  Creighton University Pharmacy Professor Linda Ohri says there are two age groups of children most likely to spread a flu strain far and wide.  The first are children in grade school, particularly kindergartners and younger who are still developing their resistance to the flu virus.  That makes them more susceptible to getting the illness.

However, Ohri says teenagers can spread the virus much farther than a young child because they are circulating in the population

Ohri says there are two reasons to get vaccinated.  First is that it protects the person from getting ill and second it protects the community.  Ohri says the rates of hospitalization for children less than two to five years of age are as high or higher, depending on their age, than it is for people over 65.  It is recommended that everyone over the age of six months get a flu shot.