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But a 40% effective vaccine has a 40% chance of completely preventing infection, Schaffner adds, adding millions of people protected from serious illness and hundreds of thousands of people excluded from hospitals. And complete protection is not the only useful measure.
Even when people are infected with the flu, new research shows that they are better off if they get the flu shot. In a 2018 study, Thompson and colleagues badyzed data from more than 3,000 patients admitted to two hospitals in New Zealand between 2012 and 2015. Of the influenza patients, those who had been vaccinated had 59% less chances of being admitted to intensive care. unit. And even though they were in intensive care, vaccinated patients spent an average of four days less in hospital.
"As you move down the continuum of severity, this study suggests that the vaccine continues to provide protection," says Thompson. "It gives us extra ammunition to talk about people's worries."
Other recent studies have shown that:
• Adults are five times more likely to die of influenza if they are not vaccinated.
• Children are half as likely to die of influenza when they are vaccinated.
• Pregnant women are less likely to be hospitalized if they are vaccinated against influenza, which also protects their newborns.
Influenza vaccine appears. to also protect people against persistent flu-like complications, such as heart attacks and strokes, which become more likely during a period of inflammation that may follow an initial infection, explains Schaffner. And the vaccine remains particularly important for frail elderly people or at the threshold of frailty. For them, the flu can be like the first domino of a series of adverse consequences for health.
Up to now, this year's flu season is slowly starting and seems quite conventional, with sporadic cases and small outbreaks beginning to show up all over the country. . The H1N1 strain is circulating and, for now, the vaccine appears to be a good partner, says Gregory Poland, director of the vaccine research group at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Cases tend to peak in February. There is still a lot of time for things to go wrong. This is a lesson that Poland learned in the winter of 2000 when it was a member of the committee that decided on the strains to be introduced into the vaccine. That year, the flu season began to be tamed. Then, in early November, a new variant appeared in the United States and quickly spread, resulting in a particularly bad flu season.
According to Poland, hundreds of millions of new influenza mutants are formed every few minutes. "People tend to think that the flu is a static virus, but it's a reservoir of incestuous viruses," he says. "Prediction is impossible."
Studies regularly show that the most effective motivator is an insistent recommendation from a health care provider. But less than half of Americans were vaccinated against the flu last year
To avoid the annual battle, some scientists are working on a universal vaccine that would cover all strains. Others try to make the influenza vaccine easier to administer with patches or other methods that do not require needles.
For the moment, according to Poland, there are nine options, including a version for the elderly, a recently re-approved nasal fog, a vaccine made from cells instead of eggs, and another can be administered by injection, a high pressure injector. flow of liquid. Poland recommends that people discuss with their health care providers what is best for them.
Regarding the fear that the flu vaccine might give you the flu, Thompson offers insurance.
"This is a vaccine made from killed virus," he says. "It's literally impossible for him to give you the flu."
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