Mandatory shots have reportedly been reinstated after 200 training wing members fell ill
More than 200 US airmen and trainees have come down with the flu at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas, NBC News has reported, citing a source at the facility. The illnesses come less than two months after the Pentagon ended its longstanding requirement for annual influenza vaccinations.
The cluster of cases is confined to the installation’s Basic Military Training wing, where recruits live and train in close quarters, NBC wrote on Friday.
An Air Force spokesperson has confirmed the outbreak to Texas Public Radio, saying that 160 members have contracted the virus over the past three weeks.
In April, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced that annual flu shots would no longer be mandatory for active-duty personnel, reservists and other Defense Department personnel, calling the mandate “absurd” and “overreaching.”
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