CDC: Flu Hitting Younger Adults Hard

Young and middle-aged adults are getting flu at higher rates than usual, U.S. health officials say. About 61% of those who have had a hospital stay because of flu this season were adults age 64 and younger, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. In the previous 3 years, 35% of those hospitalized were in this age group. People 25 through 64 years old also have accounted for 60% of deaths this season, the CDC said. That’s three times the percentage of other recent seasons. The CDC noted that younger adults are less likely to get flu shots than older adults. Most of the serious illness in this group has been caused by the H1N1 flu virus. H1N1 is the dominant U.S. strain this year for the first time since 2009, when it caused a worldwide pandemic, the CDC said. H1N1 causes serious illness in young adults more often than other strains of influenza.