[ad_1]
As the influenza season approaches its annual peak, between eight and nine and a half million people in the United States have already been infected with various strains of the respiratory virus, according to new estimates released Friday by federal health authorities. This report, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also estimates that about 100,000 people have been hospitalized for complications due to the flu. It is still too early to know how bad the 2018-19 season will be. But the good news is that this year's vaccine seems to be effective against the dominant strain and there is still time for you to get vaccinated if you have not done so yet.
This is the first year that the CDC has started providing such statistics in the flu season, instead of waiting for the totals to end. Agency officials hope weekly updates will educate the public about risks and encourage more people to get vaccinated. This decision comes on the heels of last year's unusually deadly flu season. In 2017-2018, the virus has sickened 49 million Americans and killed 80,000, including a record number of children.
A number of factors have contributed to last year's most deadly influenza season in decades. On the one hand, infections were dominated by a particularly aggressive strain of the virus – H3N2 – known to be badociated with more serious complications. This strain appears less frequently, so that people are less exposed and thus less naturally immune. Getting the flu shot would help strengthen some defenses, but last year the flu shot hit its lowest level in seven seasons. According to CDC data, just 37% of US adults have been vaccinated against influenza, down more than 6 percentage points from the previous year.
One of the reasons is probably the negative reviews that the vaccine received after its debut in Australia. Globally, this is where the flu season begins and the impact of the virus in that country predicts its state in the United States and Europe. Last year, the first reports from Australia had evaluated the effectiveness of the vaccine at 10%.
This poor performance does not mean that someone has mbadively messed up. Influenza vaccines are always a problem. Scientists best determine the strains that will appear each season, and then manufacturers develop billions of inactivated viruses in chicken eggs. However, during the production process that lasts several months, the viruses incubated in eggs are constantly changing, sometimes to the point that they do not look like wild strains that you could catch with a companion's cough. suburbs. The H3N2 strain, which was to predominate properly, turns out to be a powerful mutator.
Although the vaccine had difficulty protecting itself against this particular strain, it still offered protection against other influenza viruses also circulating. According to last year's CDC calculations, the vaccine would reduce by 40% the risk of a doctor seeing his doctor. But social media has amplified negative perceptions of its performance, which may have discouraged people from looking for it. According to the CDC, of the 180 children killed by the flu in 2017-18, about 75% of them were unvaccinated.
Their tragic death seems to have pushed more people to action this year. CDC surveys suggest that by mid-November (the most recent data available), vaccination coverage among children and adults had increased by almost 7 percentage points over the same period, with the largest gains having been registered in children aged 5 to 12 years. Doctors like Matthew Zahn, who is Medical Director of the Epidemiology Division of Orange County's Department of Public Health, are not surprised by the boomerang behavior. "Unfortunately, the main driver of people who get vaccinated is the lessons learned from their personal experience," he said. "And most people have seen someone around them fall seriously ill during the last influenza season."
Even in this case, these figures show that more than half of the US population has always opted out of the tournament this season, which the CDC recommends to people over 6 months, with the exception of immunocompromised individuals and those allergic to eggs. If you are one of those 50%, there is probably little chance that you identify yourself as an anti-vaxxer or a serious threat to anyone's health except yours. But the World Health Organization would not agree with your badessment. Last week, the international public health authority called the vaccine hesitation, defined as a "reluctance or refusal" to vaccinate, even when vaccines are available, as one of the Ten main health threats of 2019. A global influenza pandemic, which is part of the WHO described as a fatality. "The only thing we do not know is when it's going to hit and how serious it will be," the report's authors noted.
Influenza pandemics have been recorded for at least five centuries, averaging about 40 years between epidemics worldwide. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the worst. Between 1918 and 1919, the Spanish flu swept between 50 and 100 million people from the Earth's surface – the most lethal event in the history of humanity. And while the countless scientific advances made since then have improved the care physicians can provide to infected patients, the ability to predict influenza pandemics is no better today than it was 100 years ago.
That's why being vaccinated against flu at the beginning of each season, no matter how imperfect, remains the first and best line of defense for the health of the public and yours. "The flu season has an anesthetic effect because it happens every year," says Zahn. "But let's remember that every year, millions of people get sick and die by the thousands. Increasing immunization coverage, if only by a few points, would save a lot of lives. The dream of developing a "universal flu vaccine", which could be given once or twice throughout life, is getting closer to reality. As well as plans for global disease surveillance networks that could trigger early warnings in the next pandemic influenza. But in the meantime, just get vaccinated. Because you never know when the big is going to hit.
More great cable stories
Source link
