This year the flu season hit early and it will likely last until April. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the best prevention is a flu shot and it’s still not too late to get one.
Remember that the shot won’t give you the flu because the virus used in the vaccine dies during the manufacturing process. It takes about two weeks for the vaccine for fully protect you, so you could still get the flu during that time.
Also, the shot may not stop each different flu strain. This year’s vaccine is about 60 percent effective against the various types circulating today. That’s actually pretty good since the effectiveness of the flu usually ranges from 50 percent to 70 percent.
Some people wonder why the vaccine doesn’t protect against getting the flu 100 percent of the time. Health experts say it’s because the vaccine only protects against three strains of the flu.
To complicate matters even further, it takes a long time to manufacture the vaccine, so scientists must try to predict months before the flu season hits which three strains will be the most prevalent in the upcoming flu season.
But that’s about to change.
Flublok
The Food and Drug Administration just approved a new flu vaccine that will be much faster to make. That means it will require less guesswork so it will be a better match. It’s called Flublok.
Instead of growing the virus in chicken eggs for about three months, which is the usual way of manufacturing the flu vaccine, this new vaccine uses DNA technology instead, which cuts-off weeks from the manufacturing time.
Since the vaccine will not use chicken eggs, people with poultry allergies who currently cannot tolerate the flu vaccine, will be able to get this new flu shot.
In addition, this new flu vaccine is different from the regular one in that it does not use a live virus in the manufacturing process, which is a deterrent for many people who choose to abstain from getting vaccinated.
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SOURCE: CBN News
Lorie Johnson