Scripps Health Launches Flu Vaccination Clinics

In Australia, where influenza typically spreads during the Northern Hemisphere's spring and summer months, an early and robust season has health officials bracing for what they predict will be one of the worst outbreaks in the last decade. Influenza B cases have been particularly high, especially among children. American health experts use Australia as a barometer to predict what might be in store for the United States later in the fall when the virus typically emerges here.

Health officials in Australia have noted that this year's surge in infections coincides with a continuing drop in vaccination rates (from 43% of the entire population in 2022 to 32% in 2024), which has tracked a similar declining vaccination trend in the United States (from 60% of adults in 2020 to 54% in 2024), according to data from the Immunization Coalition in Australia and research conducted by scientists with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Among U.S. children aged 6 months to 18 years, the vaccination rate fell from 43% in 2023 to 36% in 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

That trend comes as pediatric deaths from influenza in the United States hit a 15-year high of 216 during the last flu season, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Additionally, a recently published paper in the journal JAMA Network documented 41 cases of a rare but severe neurologic condition, necrotizing encephalopathy, in pediatric influenza patients over the past two flu seasons in the United States. Eleven of those patients died, resulting in a high mortality rate of 27%. Among the 38 patients with vaccination histories, only six had been vaccinated, including only one among the fatalities. Researchers said those numbers suggested an opportunity to better prevent these types of severe cases with increased vaccination.

Meanwhile, another paper recently published by JAMA Network Open found that flu vaccination prevented 33% to 42% of symptomatic and asymptomatic flu infections during the 2022-23 influenza season, further validating the effectiveness of the shots.