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The 2018/2019 influenza vaccine was significantly more effective than last year, said a network based at the BC Center for Disease Control.
According to a mid-season badysis conducted by the Canadian Sentinel Practitioners' Monitoring Network, this year's vaccine was 91% effective against the H1N1 virus in children aged 1 to 8 and 72% for the general.
This is a huge increase in efficacy compared to last year's vaccine, less than 20% against influenza A (H3N2) for the general population.
"The efficacy of vaccines in general tends to be better against the H1N1 virus than the other type of influenza A," said Dr. Danuta Skowronksi, team leader for influenza and emerging respiratory pathogens at BCCDC. monitoring network.
"This year's vaccine has been successful, in part because the H1N1 influenza A virus is dominant and because this year's vaccine is a good match for this circulating virus."
According to the BCCDC, the H1N1 virus tends to have a stronger effect on children and non-elderly adults, while the H3N2 virus tends to be harder for older adults.
"Many children who have not been born in recent years will not have seen the H1N1 virus introduced during the 2009 pandemic, which has been circulating ever since," said Dr. Manish Sadarangani, Disease Specialist. Infantile Children's Hospital of British Columbia. "So, it's likely that they have lower immunity to the H1N1 flu than older people."
Although Dr. Sadarangani said October is the perfect time to get vaccinated, he added that it was not too late if you had not done it yet.
"There is still a lot of influenza A and a lot of H1N1 in circulation," he said. "With the excellent data on vaccine efficacy from the study published today, I would certainly encourage people to get vaccinated against the flu."
Asked about the upcoming season, he said that it was impossible to predict what would be the dominant strain.
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