The Centers for Disease Control isn’t pulling any punches this flu season. The country’s authority on the prevention of illness wants everyone ages 6 months and older to get a flu vaccine to thwart what can be a deadly disease.
“The strategy used to be to try and vaccinate just the people who were most at risk, but now everybody is encouraged to get vaccinated,” said Stephen Sears, M.D., clinical adviser of the Maine Public Health Association. “Luckily that’s pretty easy these days since vaccinations are so readily accessible.”
Pharmacies, doctor’s offices, senior housing complexes, schools, nursing homes and other places started offering vaccines last month. But for anyone with an aversion to needles, they’ll just have to grin and bear it.
This flu season, the CDC has recommended not using nasal sprays to deliver the vaccine.
“The data from last year showed that nasal vaccine was really not very effective,” said Sears. “It’s unclear exactly why because all the data before that shows it was very effective.”
Studies had shown the nasal spray to be more effective in young people, so it was used frequently in school clinics.
“It’s unclear why the efficacy was so poor last year,” he said, but it was enough to lead to the CDC’s recommendation.
Vaccinations have been tailored this season for four strains of flu: California, Hong Kong, Phuket and Brisbane. Public health officials are warning people now to get their shots so they’ll be inoculated by the time the flu season ramps up in October and continues into the spring. The first reports of flu in Maine occurred in mid-September – earlier than usual.
Because the flu is a contagious respiratory illness, it spreads easily. People with the virus may not exhibit symptoms from one to four days after contracting it, but they are still contagious. They remain contagious five to seven days after becoming sick, and for children, it could be longer than seven days.
Infected people can pass the virus to others via coughing or sneezing. Less often, the virus can be transferred via a touching a surface or object that someone with the flu has handled, and then touching their own mouth or nose, according to the CDC.
Symptoms typically include fever, chills, body aches and digestive upset. Although rare, the flu can be fatal, especially for people with compromised immune systems. q
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