Doctors have a message for vaccine-weary Americans: Don’t skip your flu shot this fall; and seniors, ask for a special kind of extra strength.
After the flu hit historic lows during the COVID-19 pandemic, it may be poised to make a comeback. The main clue: A nasty flu season has just ended in Australia.
While there’s no way to predict whether the U.S. will be hit as hard, “last year we went into flu season not knowing if there was flu or not. This year we know the flu is back,” he said flu specialist Richard Webby of the Children’s Research Hospital St. Jude of Memphis.
Annual influenza vaccinations are recommended for infants 6 months of age and older. The flu is more dangerous for people 65 and older, young children, pregnant women, and people with certain health conditions, such as heart and lung disease.
Here’s what you need to know:
UPDATED SHOTS FOR THE BIG LADY
As people get older, their immune systems don’t respond as strongly to the standard flu shot. This year, people aged 65 and over are being asked to get a special type of extra protection.
There are three options. Fluzone High-Dose and Flublok contain higher doses of the main flu-fighting ingredient. The other option is Fluad Adjuvanted, which has a regular dose but contains a special ingredient that helps boost people’s immune response.
Seniors can ask what type their doctor carries. But most flu shots are given at pharmacies, and some pharmacy websites, such as CVS, automatically direct people to sites that offer higher doses if their date of birth shows they qualify.
Webby advised making sure older family members and friends know about senior vaccines, in case they aren’t told when they seek the shot.
“They should at least ask, ‘Do you have the photos that are better for me?'” Webby said. “The bottom line is that they work better” for this age group.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, if a location is outside of the doses targeted for older adults, it’s better to get a standard flu shot than skip the shot.
All flu shots in the US, including the types for people under 65, are “quadrivalent,” meaning they protect against four different strains of flu. Younger people also have options, including shots for those with egg allergies and a nasal spray version called FluMist.
WHY FLU EXPERTS ARE ALERT
Australia just experienced its worst flu season in five years and what happens in southern hemisphere winters often foreshadows what northern countries can expect, said Dr Andrew Pekosz of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
And people have largely abandoned the masking and distancing precautions that before the pandemic also helped prevent the spread of other respiratory bugs like the flu.
“This poses a risk especially to young children who may not have had much prior exposure to flu viruses before this season,” Pekosz added.
“This year we’re going to have a real flu season like we saw before the pandemic,” said Dr. Jason Newland, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Washington University in St. Louis.
He said children’s hospitals are already seeing an unusually early rise in other respiratory infections, including RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, and that there is concern the flu will also hit earlier than usual, as it did in Australia.
The CDC advises a flu shot by the end of October, but says they can be given at any time during the flu season. The protection takes about two weeks to install.
The US expects 173 to 183 million doses this year. And yes, you can get a flu shot and an updated COVID-19 booster at the same time, one in each arm to reduce pain.
VACUSTES FLU OF THE FUTURE
The companies that make the two most widely used COVID-19 vaccines are now testing flu vaccines made with the same technology. One reason: When the flu mutates, prescriptions for so-called mRNA vaccines could be updated more quickly than current flu shots, most of which are made by growing the flu virus in chicken eggs.
Pfizer and its partner BioNTech are recruiting 25,000 healthy adults in the United States to receive either their experimental flu vaccine or a normal strain, to see how effective the new approach proves this flu season.
Rival Moderna tested its version on about 6,000 people in Australia, Argentina and other countries during the southern hemisphere’s flu season and is awaiting results.
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The Associated Press Department of Health and Science is supported by the Department of Science Education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Lauran Neergaard, The Associated Press