This has been the deadliest flu season for children in 15 years, CDC reports
The United States is currently experiencing the deadliest flu season for children in the last 15 years, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Friday.
A total of 216 children have died of the flu during the 2024-25 season, the highest number since the swine flu pandemic in 2009-10. The previous high was set a year ago, when there were 207 childhood flu deaths. This latest flu season saw the highest number of childhood deaths in a nonpandemic season on record since the agency began cataloging flu deaths by age two decades ago. There have also been more than 48,000 children hospitalized with the flu so far this season.
The peak of flu season is, thankfully, over, but the final death toll for this season is likely to continue to grow in the coming months. The final pediatric death of the 2023-24 season wasn’t recorded until last fall.
One factor likely contributing to the rise in flu-related deaths is the plummeting vaccination rate for seasonal flu among children. Rates steadily climbed in the years following swine flu, which killed 288 children, but began to drop quickly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Five years ago, 64% of kids had gotten their seasonal flu shot, compared to just 49% today.
Flu shots don’t necessarily prevent someone from contracting the virus and the variance in flu strains can mean their effectiveness fluctuates from year to year. But vaccines have been shown to be highly effective at fending off severe infections and deaths. The CDC estimates that vaccines prevented nearly 10 million cases of the flu, 120,000 hospitalizations and 7,900 deaths during the 2023-24 flu season.
That season was classified as “moderate” by government health officials. The one we’re currently experiencing has been categorized as “high severity.” So far there have been more than 610,000 flu-related hospitalizations and 26,000 deaths this season, nearly as many deaths as there were in the entirety of the 2023-24 season.
The worst of the 2024-25 flu season may be over, but experts see reason to be concerned about what’s coming in the future as well. It’s unclear whether childhood vaccination rates will continue to fall. The process for deciding how next season’s flu shots should be formulated was also disrupted.
Typically, the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory board holds a meeting with independent experts from around the world to choose the composition of that year’s vaccine. That meeting was abruptly cancelled this year. The FDA did release its recommended vaccine formulation on schedule in March, though it did so without the input of the outside experts. While there were some concerns that the meeting’s cancellation might delay production of this year’s vaccine, the agency said it “does not anticipate any impact on timing or availability of vaccines for the American public.”
