Swine flu vaccination should target children first
With influenza season looming, an analysis models the H1N1 virus’s potential spread and various programs to contain it
View a video modelling how H1N1 will spread in 2009 at the bottom of this article.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/10990.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1)
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/10991.jpg?resize=233%2C300&ssl=1)
If the H1N1 flu outbreak doesn’t peak until midwinter, it could be curtailed with a staggered vaccination program that begins with children and ultimately targets 70 percent of the population, researchers report online September 10 in Science.
From mid-April to August 30, a total of 9,079 hospitalizations and 593 deaths associated with the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Experts aren’t sure when seasonal flu activity will peak this year, but cases of H1N1 influenza have flared in the weeks since school began. For example, in a briefing on September 8, Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, reported that about 25,000 children were dismissed from schools on September 4 because of the flu.