Pediatricians fill vaccine messaging void left by CDC amid bad flu season

Source: The Guardian

Tue 11 Nov 2025 09.00 EST
Last modified on Tue 11 Nov 2025 11.47 EST


As flu season begins in the US, following the deadliest flu outbreak in children outside of a pandemic since record-keeping began in 2004, pediatricians are taking the lead on vaccine messaging. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not plan to resume its “wild to mild” flu vaccination campaign, which was halted in the midst of the record-breaking flu season.

Even as places such as Australia and Japan report severe flu seasons, there has also been a drop in global virus samples shared with the US, which help scientists understand which viruses and variants are circulating and how they are mutating.

In the 2024-25 flu season, 280 children died from influenza – making it the second-deadliest pediatric flu season on record in the US, second only to the 2009-10 swine flu pandemic. The CDC classified it as a “high severity season”.

A total of 109 children were diagnosed with encephalopathy, or brain swelling, related to flu infection, with one-third of those patients suffering acute necrotizing encephalopathy. Three-quarters of the patients with brain swelling needed to be admitted to the intensive care unit, and one in five died from the condition. Among the children who were eligible for the vaccine, 89% had not been fully vaccinated.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/11/pediatricians-vaccines-flu-season