The Flu Shot Doesn’t Live Up To Expectations — And That Keeps Many People Away

This flu season has been particularly grim. More people are dying of the flu than medical professionals would expect at this time of the year. One in 10 people who died during the fourth week of January died of pneumonia and influenza, and 84 children have also died so far this flu season. The number of people seeing a health care provider for flu symptoms is almost as high as 2009, when the flu hit pandemic levels.

One reason for that? There’s little faith that the vaccine will work. This year, initial estimates had suggested that the vaccine may be just 10 percent to 17 percent effective against H3N2, this season’s most common strain. That’s based on interim reporting from Canada and the final effectiveness rate in Australia for this strain.

But those figures turned out to be an underestimate. The numbers on the effectiveness of the shot among Americans, released Thursday, reveal that for older children and adults, the vaccine is 25 percent effective against H3N2. For children ages six months to eight years, it was 59 percent effective against H3N2.

However, taking into account combined effectiveness of all of the strains, the vaccine is just 36 percent effective — lower than the usual 40 to 60 percent effectiveness of past shots.

Arguably the biggest reason that Americans don’t seem to take the flu vaccine seriously is that it simply doesn’t live up to our expectations for what a vaccine is, and how it should work, said Dr. Pat Salber, founder of the healthcare blog The Doctor Weighs In.

One or two shots that confer lifetime or years-long immunity at near 100 percent effectiveness is the model we have for serious illnesses like measles, mumps, rubella and other viruses. But the flu vaccine, with its variable effectiveness and weaknesses that require people to go in year after year, presents a compliance barrier for busy people.


SOURCE :- huffingtonpost