Note: 2018-19 Flu Season Update
As the flu season continues, please review these reminders and updates below:
- It is not too late to get a flu shot if you have not received a flu immunization during the current flu season.
- Receiving a flu vaccine every year offers the best available protection against flu and has been shown to reduce illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths in people of all ages.
- If you or someone in your family are diagnosed with a respiratory illness even though you've had a flu shot, flu test confirmed or not, the flu vaccine was effective, especially if they are seen by a doctor and sent home with minimal treatment.
- If you or someone in your family have flu-like symptoms that unless instructed by a physician to be given for other medical reasons, you should avoid aspirin and aspirin-containing products (such as Pepto- Bismol, Kaopectate and Alka-Seltzer, for example), which have been associated with rare but severe complications when taken by children and adolescents with flu.
- If your child needs evaluation at a Children's Healthcare of Atlanta facility when your routine office is closed, it is better to seek care at Children’s urgent care locations as an alternative to the Emergency departments. Families can visit choa.org/locations for more specifics regarding the Urgent Care centers or use the Children’s app on their mobile phones to check wait times at the different locations.
- Please visit these resources at choa.org/flu to learn more about influenza.
