PROVIDENCE – Flu season is near, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends getting vaccinated against the virus strains that cause the annual illness before October is over.
Flu vaccines protect against the three or four viruses, depending on vaccine, that research suggests will be most common for the coming flu season, according to the CDC. For 2018-19, trivalent, or three-component, vaccines are recommended to contain:
- A/Michigan/45/2015 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus
- A/Singapore/INFIMH-16-0019/2016 A(H3N2)-like virus (updated)
- B/Colorado/06/2017-like (Victoria lineage) virus (updated)
Four-component vaccines, which protect against a second lineage of B viruses, are recommended to contain the three previously mentioned viruses, plus the B/Phuket/3073/2013-like (Yamagata lineage) virus.
Flu vaccines have been updated to better match circulating viruses, including the B/Victoria component, which was changed, and the influenza A(H3N2) component, which was updated.
The CDC notes vaccines begin to provide protection for immunized people within two weeks, so the ideal time to get a flu shot is during the weeks of October in any given year.
Flu spreads every year, but the timing, severity and length of the season varies each season. Last year, the flu season was exacerbated by a miscalculation in predicting the H1N1 viruses to immunize against while the most common flu virus in circulation was the H3N2 virus, and people with flu-like illness who would have otherwise used the shuttered Memorial Hospital putting greater strain on nearby facilities.
Even though the effectiveness of a flu vaccine can’t be predicted in advance, even a misaligned flu shot provides some protection, the CDC reports.
That protection can come in handy. Last year, 183 pediatric deaths had been reported to CDC during the 2017-18 flu season. The number exceeds the previous highest number of flu-associated deaths in children reported during a regular flu season, which was 171 during the 2012-13 season. About 80 percent of those deaths occurred in children who had not been vaccinated against flu.
The CDC doesn’t count adult deaths from flu, but as of May 23 the R.I. Department of Health reported a total of 56 deaths from flu-related illness during the 2017-18 flu season.
Rob Borkowski is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Borkowski@PBN.com.