# 2589
While reports of seasonal influenza are just now starting to trickle in here in the United States, the UK has already been hit hard by the flu. Young adults, reportedly, are being hit the hardest, with an infection rate 3 times higher than their parents.
With the peak of the Flu season here in the United States still more than a month away, it isn't too late to get a flu shot this year. Vaccine supplies are still ample in most areas.
With the increasing resistance of the H1N1 seasonal flu strain to oseltamivir (Tamiflu), getting a flu shot this year makes even more sense.
This report from the Independent.
Young adults suffer most in flu outbreak
Older people more likely to be vaccinated, experts say
By Steve Connor, Science Correspondent
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Young adults are being struck down with the flu at three times the rate of their parents' generation, figures from heath watchdogs reveal.
For every 100,000 people aged 15 to 44 in England, 54.4 of them have the flu, compared with 18 cases among the same number of people aged over 65.
Doctors have been diagnosing more cases of flu during this year's lead-up to Christmas than they have done during the past 10 pre-Christmas periods. The overall rate stands at 39 cases of influenza per 100,000 people within the general population, the government's Health Protection Agency said.
The number of flu cases reported to GPs has already breached the minimum "baseline" figure that marks the point at which the outbreak is defined as seasonal but it is still well short of the 200 cases per 100,000 that turn an outbreak into an epidemic.
Health experts said the rise in cases among the young, particularly in southern England, was in part due to the fact that many had not received the flu vaccine to protect them against the different strains of the illness.
And they said that flu outbreaks often affected certain demographics differently. They suggested that young working people suffering from the early symptoms of flu stay at home, rather than risk spreading the virus through their workplace.
