{"id":5605,"date":"2025-09-25T18:32:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T01:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abovecloud.xyz\/?p=5605"},"modified":"2025-09-25T18:32:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T01:32:41","slug":"more-kids-are-severely-ill-or-dying-from-the-flu-cdc-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abovecloud.xyz\/?p=5605","title":{"rendered":"More kids are severely ill or dying from the flu, CDC reports"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As fewer children get their flu shots, cases of a rare, severe complication are rising. Last season, the U.S. experienced the highest number of pediatric flu deaths in 15 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Christine Wear\u2019s voice trembles talking about the upcoming flu season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnxieties are high,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to navigate what life should look like without being in a bubble.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wear\u2019s son, 4-year-old Beckett, is still recovering from the flu he got way back in January. Within a week of becoming infected, he became extremely lethargic. He couldn\u2019t move his head or his arms. He couldn\u2019t eat or talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wear, 40, of River Forest, Illinois, knew what the problem was. It was the second time Beckett had developed an inflammatory brain disease caused by the flu: acute necrotizing encephalopathy, or ANE<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, bouncing back to his energetic self has been slow. \u201cIt has taken longer for his brain to recover,\u201d Wear said.

The first time he’d been diagnosed in Sept. 2022, he hadn’t had a chance to get his yearly flu shot. He’d had his flu shot when he was diagnosed with ANE the second time. There’s evidence that the shots don\u2019t work as well for people who\u2019ve already had flu-related brain inflammations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cases of pediatric ANE and other flu-related encephalopathies are on the rise. During the 2024-25 flu season, 109 children were diagnosed with the rare complication, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the new report, 84% of kids with influenza-associated encephalopathy whose vaccination status was known weren\u2019t vaccinated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The finding comes as the nation logged 280 pediatric flu deaths last year<\/a>, the deadliest ever aside from the 2009-10 H1N1 pandemic, as well as falling rates of children vaccinated against influenza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t always know how to predict which kids are going to have the most severe forms of flu, which is why we recommend the vaccine for everyone,\u201d said Dr. Buddy Creech, a pediatric infectious disease physician at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. \u201cIt’s a misnomer to think that only sickly kids get complications from the flu.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ANE is rare \u2014 just a handful of cases each year \u2014 and has never been formally tracked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, however, doctors anecdotally noted an uptick in kids severely affected with brain inflammation after having the flu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know in real numbers if this is an increase, but I will tell you, being on the ground, being a physician who cares for these patients, I was certainly struck that this was an increase,\u201d said Dr. Molly Wilson-Murphy, a pediatric neurologist at Boston Children\u2019s Hospital. She is also an author of the new study published by the CDC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dangerous complications from the flu<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The 109 children tallied in the research were all diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy, or IAE. It occurs when the influenza virus attacks the child\u2019s nervous system. Kids can have a spectrum of symptoms: confusion, difficulty walking, hallucinations, abnormal movements and seizures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilson-Murphy suspects there are at least seven forms of IAE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ANE, Beckett\u2019s illness, is one of them. ANE accounted for about a third of the overall IAE cases in the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the children with influenza-associated encephalopathy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n