A Levittown elementary school student died over the weekend apparently because influenza, officials said.

 

Nassau County Health Department spokeswomen Cynthia Brown said Tuesday that tests done on the 10-year-old girl revealed the presence of an A-strain of the flu.

 

“We just got the [test] information this morning,” Brown said adding that results from Nassau County lab are awaiting confirmation from the state’s Wadsworth Center laboratory in Albany.

 

The test results will confirm which A-strain was responsible for the girl’s death. There are two A strains in circulation (A-H3N2 and A-H1N1) and both can be prevented by this season's vaccine.

 

The girl’s death is a clear reminder that vaccination is more than necessary to prevent such cases. However, many people choose to avoid vaccination on the grounds that nothing can happen to them, which is extremely wrong. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 36,000 people, most of them elderly, die annually because of the flu and more than 200,000 need hospitalization.

 

“It is really important to vaccinate children. The vaccine is critically important if you want to reduce the amount of illness [in the population] and number of deaths,” Dr. Steven Lamm of the NYU School of Medicine in Manhattan.

 

But the vaccine is not designed only for children, but for all the people at risk of getting the flu. The CDC recommends that all kids aged 6 to 18 years get the flu shot needed for full protection against influenza, as well as pregnant women, persons over 50 years old, people with certain chronic medical conditions and residents of nursing homes or other chronic-care facilities.

 

The CDC says the vaccine is 90 percent effective in healthy adults. Older people and people with certain chronic illnesses might develop less immunity than healthy young adults after vaccination. However, even for these high-risk individuals, the vaccine still can provide protection against getting severe complications from the flu, the CDC says.