Your 2017 flu season questions answered

The U.S. government recommends everyone 6 months of age and older gets a flu vaccine each season before flu season is in full swing.

“This friendly competition has expanded this year to track the number of undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, staff, alumni and fans of OU who get immunized against influenza”, said Maryanne Swanson, nurse practitioner and director of the Graham Health Center.

The influenza vaccine teaches the body to produce antibodies against the head of the virus’s surface protein, hemagglutinin (HA).

Several people told WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News they are hesitant to get the vaccine.

A year ago in Lincoln County, 21 residents were hospitalized due to the flu. Meanwhile, influenza vaccination – or more commonly known as the flu shot – confers only a short-term vaccination requiring annual booster shots.

Flu season has arrived. “That’s why it’s better to get vaccinated early in the fall, so you are protected before flu begins spreading in your community”. Flu activity in the US commonly peaks between December and February.

According to the latest figures available, the influenza rates for the 2015/16 season were 25% in pre-school children aged two to four years, 28% for pregnant women and 26% of Islanders aged beteen 16 and 64 who are classed as at clinical risk.

They found 17 of 485 miscarriages they studied involved women whose vaccinations followed that pattern.

Most children receive the vaccine via a quick and painless nasal spray.

“A lot of people will be thinking this is too early to get it”, said Dr. David Schell, a pediatrician.

It is especially important to get the flu vaccine if you, someone you live with, or someone you care for is at high risk of complications from flu.

“They do seem to offer better protection to the elderly and if the process of assessment through our proper committees recommends that, that’s something we can certainly consider”.

Myths like like the flu shot making people sick, which is not true because it’s a dead vaccine, so fever or feeling achy afterward is a reaction to the shot not the vaccine.

Some GPs may not invite all of their registered patients who are eligible for vaccination directly. “Flu shots should be given yearly and as soon as they are available”.

Flu vaccines cause antibodies to develop in the body about two weeks after vaccination.

When flu virus is grown in eggs to make the vaccine, mutations can occur in key places (red) on the viral surface protein hemagglutinin, which undermine the shot’s protective powers.