The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
PUBLIC ENCOURAGED TO GET FLU SHOTS
Northeast Ohio still in early phase of season, doctor says
Autumn has come but another season is around the corner — flu season.
“We really seem to hit the peak of flu season after the first of the year until mid- to late February and March,” said Dr. Michael Majetich, family practitioner at Lake Health SOM Center Primary Care in Willoughby.
Majetich said Northeast Ohio is still in the early phase of flu season, “But we’re getting close to its doorstep.”
Right now, area residents have ample opportunities to receive flu shots, with area health departments, health-care systems and medical clinics, and pharmacies all offering vaccinations.
Lake Health recently announced that its urgent care/walk-in centers and retail pharmacies will continue to offer the quadrivalent flu shot, which covers four strains of the flu virus. To learn more about times and locations, call 440-953-6000 or 800-4549800.
The Lake County General Health District also is offering quadrivalent flu vaccines, with high-dose shots for people ages 65 and older, and standarddose shots for individuals ages 18-64. The district is conducting flu shot clinics at senior centers throughout Lake County. To schedule an appointment or learn more, call 440-3502554.
Health care providers and administrators locally and nationwide are hoping the 2018-19 flu vaccine will combat actual flu strains that emerge more effectively than in 2017-18.
An estimated 80,000 Americans died of the flu and its complications last winter — the highest death toll from the disease in 40 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in an Associated Press story.
In recent years, flu-related deaths in the U.S. have ranged from about 12,000 to 50,000 each winter season, the CDC stated.
The effectiveness of a
“We really seem to hit the peak of flu season after the first of the year until midto late February and March.” — Dr. Michael Majetich, family practitioner at Lake Health SOM Center Primary Care in Willoughby.
newly developed flu shot varies because there are multiple strains of the flu that spread each season, the Food and Drug Administration stated in a Fortune magazine story.
Each vaccine is formulated to target three or four of the “most likely to circulate” strains each year, but figuring out which strains to include in the seasonal flu shot isn’t an exact science.
“One of the challenges in fighting flu is that the viruses can change their genetic makeup rapidly — not only between flu seasons, but also during the course of a single season,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said in a statement. “As a result, the seasonal influenza vaccine needs to be evaluated annually to see whether its composition needs to be adjusted.”
Among the reasons that researchers believe last season’s flu season proved so deadly was that the virus mutated.
“We guessed right about the common strains that dominated last year’s flu season,” Gottlieb said. “It’s now believed that part of the reason that the vaccine was not as protective is that the flu strain used to manufacture the vaccine mutated very subtly during the development process.”
The FDA, World Health Organization, and CDC review global data each year to determine which strains to include in the vaccine — a decision that has to be made months in advance of the next flu season, the Fortune magazine story stated. The strains for this year’s flu shot were picked in March.
Components in the 201819 quadrivalent flu vaccine include updated versions of the A-strain known as H3N2 and the B-strain known as the Victoria lineage.
“Hopefully, these changes will make this season’s flu vaccine a little more effective than last season’s,” said Carol Tackett, public health nurse for the Lake County General Health District.
For people who remain skeptical about the need for an annual flu shot, Tackett offers this advice.
“Any protection against the flu is better than none at all,” she said.
Betty Wilson of Madison Township is someone who believes in the value of an annual flu shot.
“I get one every year, and I haven’t had the flu since I couldn’t tell you when,” Wilson said after getting her 2018-19 flu shot on Oct. 9 at Madison Senior Center in Madison Village.
All people over the age of 6 months are recommended to get an annual flu shot, according to the CDC.
Vaccination is particularly important for people who are at high risk for serious complications from influenza. This includes people 65 years and older, people of any age with certain chronic medical conditions — such as asthma, diabetes, or heart disease — pregnant women and children younger than 5 years, but especially those younger than 2 years old.
Although some people believe that you can get the flu from a flu shot, this isn’t true, the CDC stated. There is no live flu virus in the shots, and these vaccinations cannot cause the flu.
“That doesn’t mean you might not feel under the weather as your body builds up and processes antibodies,” Majetich said.
It takes about two weeks after vaccination for antibodies to develop in the body and provide protection against influenza virus infection, the CDC stated.
As for the ideal time to get a flu shot, Tackett said the rule of thumb is by the end of the October.
“That way, it will continue to give protection throughout the entire flu season,” she said, adding that the vaccine supposed to last for six months.
Besides receiving a yearly vaccination, Tackett said other ways to prevent getting and spreading the flu include regular hand-washing, covering your coughs and sneezes, and staying home from work or school when you’re sick.
Majetich endorses those same tips, but offers another another suggestion that he considers important. He said doctors need to work patients to help them achieve overall wellness, all year round.
“We like to see people stay well,” he said.