US experts urge expanding flu vacc season

Health care professionals should increase influenza immunization rates by implementing key, practice-proven interventions and offering vaccine at every opportunity throughout the entire influenza season, conclude leading influenza experts in a July 2008 supplement to the American Journal of Medicine. The experts assert that the medical community is not taking advantage of routine office visits to immunize all recommended individuals against a disease that causes more than 200,000 hospitalizations and more than 36,000 deaths in the USA every year. This year, more people are recommended for influenza vaccination than ever before - nearly 250 million Americans.