WASHINGTON (AP)- Far too few Americans get their flu shots each winter, the government is warning as it calls for a record number to line up for inoculations this year — including 30 million more school-age children.

This year promises an ample vaccine supply: 143 million to 146 million doses, more than ever before manufactured.

"It's a fact that the influenza vaccine saves lives," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Add up everyone the CDC recommends get vaccinated, and 261 million Americans qualify. Yet last year, just 113 million of the 140 million doses produced were used.

And new CDC data released Wednesday show just a fraction of those at highest risk from influenza's seasonal march across the country get protected. Flu kills about 36,000 Americans a year and leads to about 200,000 hospitalizations.

Just 72 percent of people 65 and older were vaccinated in the 2006-07 flu season, the latest data available — even though Medicare pays for their doses. That's well short of the government's goal to be vaccinating 90 percent of this age group by 2010.

Roughly one in five children under 2 got vaccinated that winter.

Anyone who has a chronic illness such as asthma or heart disease, or a weak immune system, is in special need of vaccination as well. But the new data shows just over a third of young adults with those conditions, and half of 50- to 64-year-olds, comply.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)