Health Department Says This Year's Flu Season Should Be Milder

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- State health officials are hoping for a milder flu season. They say this season's vaccine will be more effective than last year's.

Shipments of the vaccine are already available at some health clinics. Doctors say the formulation for this year's vaccine has been updated since the flu is an influenza that changes.

Doctors say the season itself is unpredictable. However, health officials say they've updated strains in the vaccine to match more closely with what they expect to circulate.

Last year, the Minnesota Department of Health says there was a mismatch between the influenza strains and the vaccine. Typically, flu season peaks in February or March. But, doctors have seen outbreaks as early as October.

Last year, the virus reached record numbers around Christmas. You may remember at least two Minnesota schools started winter break early because so many kids and staff contracted the virus.

Ten children also died in Minnesota. Health experts say everyone should get vaccinated now.

"We definitely encourage people to take advantage of the opportunity to get vaccinated. There is still plenty of time, but we know people are busy and we don't want them to miss opportunities to get a vaccine so we encourage you to go ahead and get vaccinated early in the season," Jennifer Heath with the Minnesota Department of Health said.

We spoke with Patsy Stinchfield, a nurse practitioner with Children's Hospitals. She says they already received vaccination shipments and started giving them to patients in early August.

Stinchfield says health officials want to prevent the same outbreaks we saw last year.

The good news is some parents aren't wasting any time getting their kids vaccinated after last year was a difficult year.

Children's Hospitals has a partnership with local schools. Stinchfield said they're actually giving flu vaccinations to students at school open house nights.