gethealthy

This time of year it is very common to hear, “Have you had your flu shot?”  You may hear this from doctors, co-workers, family, or even strangers.   You may be tempted to just blow off the idea, but you should take it seriously.

Influenza is a very common disease, but it can be serious.  Every year there are about 36,000 deaths in America from the flu and approximately 200,000 people are hospitalized because of it.   In years prior to the development of the vaccine, there were times when the flu reached pandemic status and may have killed nearly 50 million people.

There are different strains of the influenza virus and they are predicted each year in the months prior to flu season.  This advance research allows manufacturers time to appropriately create a vaccine.  The vaccine that is available every year is designed to offer protection from 3 strains of the virus; 2 strains of influenza type A and one strain of type B.In addition, there are a couple of options to receive your vaccination.  The most commonly used one is the shot.  The flu shot provides the receiver with an inactivated virus which contains a killed virus and is administered by a needle into the arm.   this method is approved for people age 6 months or older, those which chronic conditions like asthma, diabetes, and heart disease.  Another popular way to receive your vaccine is through a nasal spray flu vaccine, which was approved in 2003.  The nasal spray contains a weakened live virus.  The spray is administered into the nose by a nasal sprayer.  This form of vaccination has been approved for healthy individuals age 2-49, and those who are not pregnant.

Most often the match of vaccine is good compared to the strain of virus that is circulating.  Even if the match is not 100%, you should still get it to provide you with some cross protection and over the years it may help to strengthen the immune system against a variety of strains.