A study in the US reveals that hardly 29 per cent of the asthmatic children surveyed had received flu shots in 2004-05. Health officials have termed it as a dangerous trend for not vaccinating their kids against the flu.
It was a dangerous trend, health officials have warned.Actually it has been warned that asthmatic children could die of flu complications. They could fall victims to pneumonia or acute respiratory disease. Inactivated flu vaccine is recommended for asthmatic children older than six months.
Possibly some parents are under a wrong impression that flu vaccine could actually trigger an asthma attack or a bout of flu itself.
Hence they desist from vaccination, officials said while releasing the results of the survey conducted after a flu vaccine shortage that triggered some panic across the US.
According to Susan Brim of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lead author of the study, its findings could even be slightly misleading.
For at the time of the survey when the scare was on, the asthmatic children were given priority for the administration of the flu vaccine. So then possibly more persons than normal were vaccinated that year.
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That is a very disturbing trend as influenza could be fatal in asthmatic children or adults. Hence family doctors should take a greater responsibility in properly educating their patients, it is stressed.
Source-Medindia
SRM
