BATON ROUGE — The Louisiana Department of Health said Thursday that a Louisiana child has died from Influenza this flu season. 

"To protect the family’s privacy, additional information about the patient will not be released," an LDH spokesperson said. 

According to the CDC, Louisiana is among 48 states with levels of flu cases deemed “very high.” The agency estimates that there have been 11 million flu cases nationally, with 120,000 related hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths attributed to the virus this flu season.

Former state surgeon general Dr. Ralph Abraham declined to promote the flu vaccine in Louisiana or have the state health department host events where the vaccine is made available over the past two years before he was named to the CDC's No. 2 position.