A vicious strain of the flu has been exploding across the country, but it’s just now starting to pick up in the Valley. Health officials are urging people here to get flu shots before the spread gets worse.

That's likely to happen just as the Valley swells with visitors for the Super Bowl and the Phoenix Open.

That’s Dr. Bob England’s hypothesis. He’s the director of the Maricopa County Department of Public Health. 

The vaccine is especially important, "if you’re an older adult, you have any one of a number of a chronic conditions, you’re pregnant, very small children, and so forth," England said. "Those folks really need all the protection they can get so that they stay out of the hospital and, frankly, live through the flu season this year."

This year's vaccine is not a perfect match for some of the flu strains, he said, but it can still offer important protection.

"So, we’ve got this great tool that could protect people against the flu," he said. "And every year, most people blow it off for reasons that I don’t understand, while at the same time, we get very worried about very rare diseases that are unlikely to kill you."

He estimates a few hundred people die of the flu every year in the Valley.