Flu vaccine efficacy numbers may seem lower than normal, but any flu vaccine is better than no vaccine, says William Schaffner, MD, professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University, in this MedPage Today video.
Schaffner characterizes the current vaccine's efficacy numbers as "not bad," and reiterates that vaccination helps prevent severe flu even if it isn't perfect. He also emphasizes the importance of pediatric immunizations, given the latest CDC data about pediatric deaths, and looks ahead to upcoming flu vaccine research.
Following is a transcript of his remarks:
The vaccine, we know, the influenza vaccine, is never perfect. It's never as good as we wish it were. The efficacy numbers, well, they're not bad. They were kind of what we expected, 25% against the dominant strain, H3N2, but it does better against H1N1 and against the B strains. And for sure, in our neck of the woods, we've had plenty of H1N1 and B.
So, it's a shotgun. We're trying to prevent as much influenza as we can, and I assure you no matter what you think of the imperfections with the influenza vaccine, it's a heck of a lot better than no vaccine at all. We do benefit to our patients by vaccinating them. Remember, the efficacy numbers only tell half the story. The other half of the story is that even if you get flu, despite having received the vaccine, you're likely to have a milder case or shall I say a less severe case. You're less likely to get the complications of pneumonia, having to be hospitalized, and dying. What's wrong with that? We're going to do the best we can with what we have. Ben Franklin had it right. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.
Pediatricians and family doctors are trying to vaccinate children. Of course, they need the collaboration of the moms, largely, to bring the kids in, and the children under the age of eight actually need two doses of vaccine if it's the first time that they're getting vaccinated. Each year, the pediatricians and the family doctors are trying to do a very, very large job.
One of the greatness sadnesses is that each year, as we look at the children who have died of influenza, at least half of them have not been vaccinated. I cannot imagine being a parent of a child that's died of influenza and you had not had them vaccinated. That must be with you for the rest of your life. That's so sad.
One of the things that is a takeaway from today's information about the vaccine efficacy, we know it's not nearly as good as we would like, which means, for sure, we need a better influenza vaccine. The manufacturers are working to try to make better influenza vaccines step-by-step. You know, in the last several years, we've had two vaccines licensed for people age 65 and older that seem to work better in that population, the high-dose vaccine and the vaccine that's made with an adjuvant. There are other folks out there trying to make a better influenza vaccine, so the lights are on in the research laboratories at night.
Of course, the Holy Grail would be the so-called "universal influenza vaccine," at least universal across all those influenza A strains. That would mean that perhaps we could get vaccinated not every year, but maybe every five years or maybe every 10 years or something like that. That would change the way we could deliver influenza vaccine, would get more people vaccinated, and would get much more protection against influenza.
from Health - Google News http://ift.tt/2Gu1SuH
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