Flu activity highest among U.S. young and middle-aged: CDC

By David Beasley ATLANTA (Reuters) – Hardest hit this U.S. flu season are adults, from younger to middle-aged, in part because fewer have been vaccinated, a federal health agency said on Thursday as the season enters its final weeks. An estimated 60 percent of those who have died from influenza this season were 24 to 64 years old, compared with 18 percent last season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. People ages 18 to 64 have accounted for 61 percent of all hospitalizations due to the flu, up from about 35 percent in the three prior seasons, the CDC said. This season’s dominant flu strain is the H1N1 virus, the same one that struck in 2009, with high rates of hospitalization and death among young adults and the middle aged, the CDC said.