As the flu season approaches, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced yesterday that more Americans than ever before should get vaccinated against the flu.

A panel of top health experts joined together on Wednesday morning in Washington, D.C., with the aim of supporting CDC’s most recent recommendations regarding children. These recommendations, supported by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and the American Academy of Pediatrics, say that all children between the ages of 6 months and 18 years should be administered this year’s influenza vaccine to avoid contracting the virus. By adding this age group, an estimated 30 million more people could receive a flue shot.

According to Julie Gerberding, an infectious disease expert and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a record-setting amount of flu vaccine will be available this season. More precisely, between 143 million and 146 million doses of influenza vaccine will be administered this fall to people recommended to get it.

"Flu is very transmissible in school," she said. "This is truly an effort not only to improve the individual health of children but to affect the population of children as they congregate in schools and day care." This is the very first time health officials advise parents of all school-age children to get their kids vaccinated against the influenza viruses.

Ms. Gerberding also said that this flu season’s vaccine would provide an increased protection against influenza because, currently, all three strains the vaccine include have been modified. Last year, of the three strains of the vaccine, two didn't match the influenza strains that circulated in America.

Roughly one-third of school-age children catch the flu each year, said Renee Jenkins, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. If these children receive the vaccine, they can prevent the spread of the flu. Children up to 18 years of age experience complications infrequently. 86 cases of death among this age group were reported. Overall, an estimated 20 percent of U.S. residents get the contagious respiratory illness annually, which means about 36,000 deaths per year.

There are two types of vaccines that protect the body against flu. One of them is the "flu shot," a vaccine that is not activated, which means that it contains the killed virus. The flu shot requires an injection, usually in the arm. The Food and Drug Administration approved it for use among people aged 6 months and more, healthy people and those who have chronic medical conditions counting among them. The other type of vaccine, the nasal-spray flu vaccine, contains weakened live viruses, and is used by means of a nasal sprayer. It was approved in 2003 for use only among healthy people aged 2 to 49, who are not pregnant. Both vaccines contain three influenza viruses, which are responsible for seasonal flu epidemics each year.