CDC Reports More Than 200 Children Have Died This Flu Season

The AP (5/2, Stobbe) reported more US children have “died this flu season than at any time since the swine flu pandemic 15 years ago, according to a federal report released Friday.” The 216 pediatric deaths reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “eclipse the 207 reported last year” and are the “most since the 2009-2010 H1N1 global flu pandemic.” The season “has not only been hard on children. CDC officials have described it as ‘highly severe,’ and estimate that so far there have been at least 47 million illnesses, 610,000 hospitalizations and 26,000 deaths this season.”