(A Radio Iowa report) – Health experts predict the upcoming flu season may be severe, both in Iowa and across the region. Joel Waddell, a pediatric infectious diseases doctor at Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines, says everyone six months or older who is able to, should get a flu shot. “Every year we have children, and there are adults every year who have never had a severe flu infection in the past who end up in the hospital,” Waddell says. “We have quite a number of deaths every year, unfortunately, from influenza.”

State data shows just 36-percent of Iowans were vaccinated against the flu last season and Waddell notes, every year, otherwise healthy people are hit hard by the illness. “Young children especially who have no underlying problems, no previous medical history, can be hospitalized,” he says, “and even have passed away from the flu.”

Waddell says now is the ideal time to get vaccinated, as he says it’s best to get it no earlier than September but no later than October.