tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
By Bryan Walsh
I received my annual flu shot back in October, and I have to say, I felt pretty good about myself. Though doctors constantly tell us to get vaccinated, most Americans don’t bother — a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in November indicated that just 36% of all Americans age 6 months and older will get the flu vaccine. That’s too bad — a simple flu shot can save the average person days of unhappy illness (and lost time at work or school) if they get exposed to the flu this winter. And for the very young, the very old and the immunocompromised, a flu vaccination might make the difference between life and becoming one of the 30,000 some Americans who die from influenza-related causes each year.
There’s just one problem: influenza is unpredictable. Flu viruses are notoriously promiscuous, which isn’t a judgment of their morals, but their genes. Flu viruses mutate constantly, sometimes on their own as they replicate inside an infected cell, and sometimes through recombination — directly swapping genes with other flu viruses. We need a new vaccination every year because the flu strains we might be exposed to over the winter differ from season to season. The flu shot itself is actually a trivalent vaccine, meaning that it protects against the three separate flu strains that experts believe are most likely to be circulating around the Northern Hemisphere this winter. If all goes well, you’re unlikely to be exposed to a flu strain that’s not covered by the vaccine.
Unless, of course, something unexpected occurs. And that may indeed be happening this winter.
...
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/...ld-complicate-influenza-season/#ixzz1i3cNDc9M
I received my annual flu shot back in October, and I have to say, I felt pretty good about myself. Though doctors constantly tell us to get vaccinated, most Americans don’t bother — a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in November indicated that just 36% of all Americans age 6 months and older will get the flu vaccine. That’s too bad — a simple flu shot can save the average person days of unhappy illness (and lost time at work or school) if they get exposed to the flu this winter. And for the very young, the very old and the immunocompromised, a flu vaccination might make the difference between life and becoming one of the 30,000 some Americans who die from influenza-related causes each year.
There’s just one problem: influenza is unpredictable. Flu viruses are notoriously promiscuous, which isn’t a judgment of their morals, but their genes. Flu viruses mutate constantly, sometimes on their own as they replicate inside an infected cell, and sometimes through recombination — directly swapping genes with other flu viruses. We need a new vaccination every year because the flu strains we might be exposed to over the winter differ from season to season. The flu shot itself is actually a trivalent vaccine, meaning that it protects against the three separate flu strains that experts believe are most likely to be circulating around the Northern Hemisphere this winter. If all goes well, you’re unlikely to be exposed to a flu strain that’s not covered by the vaccine.
Unless, of course, something unexpected occurs. And that may indeed be happening this winter.
...
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/...ld-complicate-influenza-season/#ixzz1i3cNDc9M