Dean Cain is on a Mission!
Dean Cain is helping raise awareness about the importance of annual influenza vaccination and to encourage others to get immunized as soon as vaccine is available. This year, vaccination against seasonal influenza is the first line of defense against the flu virus.
While Dean may have been a great football player and appeared on ?Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman?, he knows he?s not invincible. He wants Tampa/St. Petersburg residents to know that the flu is a serious disease and vaccination is the best protection.
The recent A/H1N1 influenza virus outbreak is a strong reminder that influenza is not the common cold. It?s a serious respiratory illness. Seasonal influenza remains a consistent public health threat that, along with its complications, results in an estimated 226,000 hospitalizations and approximately 36,000 deaths each year. Getting vaccinated is our first line of defense this influenza season.
Despite CDC?s recommendations that more than 4 out of 5 Americans should be vaccinated against influenza, immunization rates remain alarmingly low. In Florida, only 11.1 percent of children 6 months to 2 years of age; 20 percent of those ages 18 to 49; 34 percent of those ages 50 to 64; and 63.7 percent of those older than 65 get vaccinated (as of the 2006-2007 influenza season).
In an average year, between 136,000 and 544,000 Tampa/St. Petersburg residents will contract the flu. These people and thousands more are the ?faces? of influenza. More information and local flu clinic locations can be found at www.facesofinfluenza.org .
While Dean may have been a great football player and appeared on ?Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman?, he knows he?s not invincible. He wants Tampa/St. Petersburg residents to know that the flu is a serious disease and vaccination is the best protection.
The recent A/H1N1 influenza virus outbreak is a strong reminder that influenza is not the common cold. It?s a serious respiratory illness. Seasonal influenza remains a consistent public health threat that, along with its complications, results in an estimated 226,000 hospitalizations and approximately 36,000 deaths each year. Getting vaccinated is our first line of defense this influenza season.
Despite CDC?s recommendations that more than 4 out of 5 Americans should be vaccinated against influenza, immunization rates remain alarmingly low. In Florida, only 11.1 percent of children 6 months to 2 years of age; 20 percent of those ages 18 to 49; 34 percent of those ages 50 to 64; and 63.7 percent of those older than 65 get vaccinated (as of the 2006-2007 influenza season).
In an average year, between 136,000 and 544,000 Tampa/St. Petersburg residents will contract the flu. These people and thousands more are the ?faces? of influenza. More information and local flu clinic locations can be found at www.facesofinfluenza.org .