The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released their annual recommendations for vaccination against the flu, advising citizens to take care of their health and prevent the virus from initiating their flu shots, but with so many health rumors some might feel confused. Since the flu season is about to start, here’s all of the things you might want to take into account when it comes to the disease.
The first thing that it’s important to note is that the flu could be a deadly disease. In fact, according to the CDC thousands of Americans die each year because of it. Around 30,000 U.S citizens pass away every year because of the flu and its complications, sometimes the patient’s health had already been compromised before the virus started.
Many people tend to confuse the flu with a common cold because of its similar symptoms such as throat soreness, fever, and cough, but the flu is a much stronger virus that can lead to a deadly infection.
Every year flu season starts around October, with the first chills of the winter the doctors and pharmacies are getting ready to spread the shots. However, over the past years, big pharmaceutical names such as CBS and Walgreens have started their vaccine season earlier, and patients are getting confused.
When is the best time to get the shot? Does the nasal shot work? Can I get the flu by taking the shot? And how long does it last? These are just some of the questions the public has issued.
Flu season
This year, the CDC is advising everyone who is six months and older to get a flu vaccination before the season starts, which is commonly in October, but taking the shot earlier is still valid in the human body.
According to the report, this year the CDC is not advising patients to take the nasal shot of the vaccination but the injected one for more effectiveness. Even though researchers affirm both versions work as prevention, the injected vaccine is being categorized as “more effective” for more flu season.
Every year, scientists design a new type of flu vaccine by evaluating the symptoms and the strains that caused the flu in the Southern Hemisphere. These observations work as a form of prevention and a guessing game of what sort of virus might attack the country.
Sometimes, the vaccine created by scientists is not as effective as it has been in past years, but according to the CDC, researchers have claimed that the vaccination for the 2016-2017 period is 60 percent efficient.
The organization has informed the importance of understanding that getting a vaccination doesn’t cause the flu, in fact, it is impossible for people to get the virus from the vaccine. The injectable form of the vaccine doesn’t contain a live virus or traces of it but the dead version of the infection. In the nasal injection, small traces of the virus are found, but it’s still unlikely to be sickened by it.
Researchers explain that the reason why people have this impression is that flu season is nearby the time when infectious and respiratory diseases are around, individuals who got the vaccine might have contracted the disease before.
As CNN reports, big pharmaceutical companies who’ve managed to get inside medical clinics in their stores have turned flu and vaccine season in a “marketing scheme” since they develop the vaccines earlier they begin receiving clients sooner.
Researchers advise people to take the vaccine shot around October so that the patient can be protected against the virus for the entire flu season. However, patients need to know that the vaccine takes two weeks to act so by taking the shot in September they would be covered for the entire season as well.
Considerations for this flu season
For the past decade, researchers have advised people that suffer from egg allergy to be aware when they take flu shots since one of the active ingredients in the vaccines is egg proteins.
In the past, physicians advised patient’s to take a skin allergy test to understand if they were allergic to egg proteins and those who were positive, were monitored closely by doctors.
However, further studies proved that the skin test wasn’t reliable, and people that suffered from egg allergy would remain under observation. This year the CDC’s recommendations include obviating the egg allergy tests since the number of people suffering from it has deemed to 1.31 people out of a million.
In general, the CDC advises everyone to go to their nearby clinic or pharmacy and get their flu shots, regardless of the time is better to be protected than to suffer from a deadly infection. The report emphasizes on children and elder adults since they are the most likely to perish from the disease.
Source: CDC