The flu vaccine may not be very effective this winter, according to U.S. health officials, who worry this may lead to more serious illnesses and deaths.
Flu season has begun to ramp up, and officials say the vaccine does not protect well against the dominant strain seen most commonly so far this year. That strain tends to cause more deaths and hospitalizations, especially in the elderly.
"Though we cannot predict what will happen the rest of this flu season, it's possible we may have a season that's more severe than most," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at a news conference Thursday.
CDC officials think the vaccine should provide some protection and still are urging people to get vaccinated. But it probably won't be as good as if the vaccine strain were a match. Flu vaccine effectiveness tends to vary from year to year. Last winter, flu vaccine was 50 to 55 percent effective overall, which experts consider relatively good.
Flu’s presence in the Sunshine State is increasing, and has been responsible for at least two pediatric deaths in recent weeks. A total of 177 deaths statewide have been attributed to flu, the DOH weekly influenza surveillance shows.
A total of 37 Florida counties reported increased flu activity the week of Nov. 16, the most recent update available from the Florida Department of Health. Of those, 27 counties reported that flu activity is at a plateau.
The CDC issued an advisory to doctors about the situation last week. CDC officials said doctors should be on the lookout for patients who may be at higher risk for flu complications, including children younger than 2, adults 65 and older, and people with asthma, heart disease, weakened immune systems or certain other chronic conditions.
Such patients should be seen promptly, and perhaps treated immediately with antiviral medications, the CDC advised. If a patient is very sick or at high risk, a doctor shouldn't wait for a positive flu test result to prescribe the drugs — especially this year, CDC officials said.
The medicines are most effective if taken within two days of the onset of symptoms. They won't immediately cure the illness, but can lessen its severity and shorten suffering by about a day, Frieden said.
Among infectious diseases, flu is considered one of the nation's leading killers. On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.
Nearly 150 million doses of flu vaccine have been distributed for this winter's flu season. Current flu vaccines are built to protect against three or four different kinds of flu virus, depending on the product. The ingredients are selected very early in the year, based on predictions of what strains will circulate the following winter.
The ingredients always include a Type A H3N2 flu virus. The most severe flu seasons tend to be dominated by some version of that kind of flu bug. The three most deadly flu seasons of the past 10 years — in the winters of 2003-04, 2007-08, and 2012-13 — were H3N2 seasons.
In March, after the H3N2 strain of vaccine production was underway, health officials noted the appearance of a new and different strain of H3N2. "This is not something that's been around before," Frieden said.
But health officials weren't sure whether the new strain would become a significant problem in the United States this winter until recently, they said. Lab specimens from patients have shown that the most commonly seen flu bug so far is the new strain of H3N2.
This news follows another problem recently identified by CDC officials, involving the nasal spray version of flu vaccine.
At a scientific meeting at the CDC in October, vaccine experts were told of preliminary results from three studies that found AstraZeneca's FluMist nasal spray had little or no effect in children against the swine flu strain that was the most common bug making people sick last winter. Because this year's version of FluMist is the same formulation, experts said it's possible the spray vaccine won't work for swine flu this season, either. However, CDC officials think H3N2 will be the most common flu bug this winter.
Health News Florida reporter Mary Shedden contributed to this report.
