Swine Flu: Your Questions Answered on 'Good Morning America'

Oct. 9, 2009— -- With the arrival of the swine flu vaccine this week has come a fresh round of worries about the virus and how to prevent it.

"Good Morning America" took a look Thursday inside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the men and women charged with slowing the spread of the flu and preventing as many deaths as possible.

Viewer response was so overwhelming that ABC News' chief medical editor Dr. Tim Johnson and senior health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser took time to answer several questions that came into "Good Morning America."

Q: A CDC report showed that 25 percent of patients who were hospitalized for swine flu went into intensive care and 45 percent of those were 18 years old or younger. What do those numbers mean?

A: "What it says is we really need to take this seriously," Besser said. "Pandemic hits children very hard."

Johnson said the reason older people don't seem to be as susceptible to the H1N1 virus is that previous viral disease has likely provided them with some natural immunity.

Q: How many children have been tested for swine flu?

A: Besser said the good news about all the children who have been tested is that previous flu vaccines have proved successful for the "tens of millions" of young patients who have received them.

When it comes to the swine flu, he said, "children under 10 need two doses."