US CDC Study Says Early Flu Intervention Best for Elderly Population

Well, there’s the coming flu season, for one.

She also says certain people who are more vulnerable to the effects of the flu should be sure to get the shot, including those with any kind of medical issue such as emphysema, asthma, heart disease and high blood pressure.

The time to pop into a doctor’s office or a pharmacy is now or soon, as the body needs about two weeks after receiving the vaccine to build up the necessary antibodies, which provide about three months of protection from the winter viral onslaught, Dr. George said. The flu vaccine primes the immune system to attack two proteins on the surface of the influenza A virus, hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N).

Last year was a lousy year for the flu vaccine. The H3N2 component will change to a strain called A/Switzerland, which was prevalent last flu season and was one of the H3N2 strains that caused the mismatch between what was circulating and what was in the vaccine for previous year .

Most states, including Maryland, have mandatory childhood vaccination requirements for tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenza type b, measles, mumps, rubella, pneumococcal, polio and chickenpox.

The CDC advises all patients ages 6 months and older to receive an annual flu vaccine.

Most adults, including me, receive the flu shot made from chicken eggs.

A special group of young people, ages 16 to 23, are targeted for meningococcal vaccines, which protect against the serious bacterial disease that spreads among people living in close quarters, such as in dormitories.

Getting a flu shot is an important part of preventative medicine. As many as 36,000 of those cases were in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In the cases where the elderly were also immunized against the flu, findings showed that the decline in risk was twice as large than in senior citizens who have not received the vaccine at all. The so-called stomach flu is caused, most likely, by a norovirus, not influenza.

Riddle said over the past years with the introduction of the Affordable Care Act, more people have insurance that covers the flu vaccines.

The CDC does not require hospitals to report adult flu deaths, so there are no exact statistics on how many people die from flu every year. If you have the flu, stay home from work or school. It takes about two weeks to acquire that immunity.

A common misconception about the vaccine is that it will actually make you sick. While a little arm soreness (from the shot), and for some people, mild fever and aches might occur, these symptoms are short-lived and nowhere in the remote vicinity of full-blown flu.