The Year Flu By, & Flu Season Is Upon Us

If you think Christmas products in the stores are early, they’re not the only thing coming early this year, so you’d better watch out:

This is the month to do it

At time of writing, anyway. We’re in October. Basically, the CDC recommends annual flu vaccination for everyone 6 months and older, ideally by the end of October. Because flu activity appears to be starting unusually early this year, some experts (such as epidemiologist Dr. Mariana Lenharo, whose work we’ll cite shortly) are encouraging people to get vaccinated now rather than delaying.

As ever, vaccination is particularly important for young children, pregnant women, adults 65 and older, and people with asthma, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, or other conditions that increase the risk of serious complications; babies under 6 months are too young to be vaccinated, so their caregivers should get vaccinated.

This is reasonable, as vaccines save millions of lives every year:

• WHO | Global immunization efforts have saved at least 154 million lives over the past 50 years
• CDC | Fast Facts on Global Immunization: Vaccination benefits
• Lancet | Contribution of vaccination to improved survival and health: modelling 50 years of the Expanded Programme on Immunization

Since vaccines are not without their popular misunderstanders, we have written a little about that, here: Vaccine Mythbusting

In this case, flu tests are showing unusually high positivity for early fall in the US and UK, while Japan experienced outbreaks in August and early September that led some schools to close.

In the US, most cases are H1N1, which accounted for 96% of typed cases during the week ending September 26, compared with H3N2 dominating last season, but it’s still too early to know how the season will develop.

Now, this year’s vaccine appears to match the H3N2 and influenza B viruses circulating so far, but its match to H1N1 strains is not yet clear, so there is a degree of “hope for the best” going on, but this has more merit than you might expect, as even when the vaccine isn’t an exact match, it can still provide meaningful protection by getting the same (or at least very similar) antibodies flowing—and very often, immune responses do have a “close enough!” philosophy, which can be a bit of a double-edged sword, because:

• on the one hand, it can mean greater immune protection
• on the other hand, the same mechanism can be involved in allergies

You can read more about this here: Flu season could kick off ‘incredibly’ early — what scientists are watching

Can’t get vaccinated?

There are many people who, for one reason or another, cannot reasonably get vaccinated.

If that’s you, then it’s best if everyone around you is vaccinated, so that they’re much less likely to transmit the virus to you.

Aside from that, there are other ways to reduce the risk, such as: Two Weeks Mixing With Flu Patients, Nobody Caught The Flu (Here’s Why!)

You might also want to check out: Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters! ← most people don’t know these things and the huge difference they make

And for that matter: Why Some People Get Sick More (And How To Not Be One Of Them) ← for a very prophylactic approach

Take care!