This Season’s Flu Vaccine Worked About 50% Of The Time

This Season’s Flu Vaccine Worked About 50% Of The Time

With this year’s especially aggressive and lengthy flu season, an analysis of the flu vaccine showed that it was effective in only 56 percent of the cases while failing to protect most elderly people.

The study shows the need for a better vaccine as the annual influenza season kills between 3000 and 50,000 depending on the severity of the virus and the length of the season.

Generally a vaccine is supposed to lower the infection rate somewhere between 50 and 70 percent with this year’s coming dangerously close to the bottom part of that prediction.

The vaccine worked better in preventing Influenza B with chances of getting infected being lowered by 67 percent while in the influenza A or H3N2 strain infection rates were lowered only by 47 percent.

The estimates aren't definitive as the season is not yet over. Data was gathered from about 2700 people that signed up for the U.S. Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness Network.

In regards to why the vaccines worked so poorly to protect elderly people, the CDC couldn't come up with a clear answer and suggested that the main cause was the less efficient immune system elderly people have. Studies are still being made to determine the cause of the shortcomings this year’s flu vaccine had.

Posted by George Daniels on Friday February 22 2013, 1:54 AM EST. Ref: Reuters. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Health. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0