Protect yourself: Flu Season is here

(Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press) — The flu season is beginning to take off and many states are feeling the impact. Last year, 381,000 people were hospitalized across the country with the flu, and those numbers could be up this year because of the type that is now prevalent.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the main strain circulating in the U.S. is the H1N1 virus, the same one that caused the swine flu pandemic of 2009-2010.This flu is most dangerous to pregnant women and young children. Now is the time to protect yourself.

Wash your hands frequently with soap and water. And get vaccinated. That’s the advice of the CDC and the state Health Department. It is not too late to get a shot; the flu season will last at least through March. And getting vaccinated could mean you don’t spread the virus to someone who’s at high risk, like a baby or someone with a chronic disease, the CDC said, noting that four children have already died of flu-related complications. “Any way you slice and dice it, there are a million reasons you should get your flu shot,” said Joseph Bresee, a CDC flu specialist based in Atlanta.

The flu vaccine this year contains antibodies to H1N1 and the two other strains that are circulating so it should provide good protection, he said. The good news is that there is plenty of nasal spray vaccine available so those who don’t like needles can be vaccinated with just a squirt of liquid up their nose, Bresee said.

About half of Americans are vaccinated against the flu each year. A new vaccination is necessary yearly because the flu mutates as it circles the globe, and the variants one year are rarely the same as those the next. There is a persistent myth among some people that getting the flu vaccine gives you the flu, but that’s wrong, Bresee said.

The virus in the vaccine is inactive and is designed to stimulate the immune system. In cases where people get vaccinated, then get sick, it’s likely they were either infected with the flu before the vaccine had time to take effect or were infected with another virus that was not the flu. Pregnant women are a group the CDC is especially concerned about. During the pandemic in 2009-2010, pregnant women were at very high risk of having complications from the H1N1 strain. It was also dangerous to the babies they carried.

Mothers who get vaccinated are also protecting their babies. Since the outbreak in 2009, there have been multiple studies confirming that vaccinating pregnant women protects their babies from flu in the first six months of life, when their immune system is developing and they are especially at risk. Young children are at higher risk because they’ve had less time to be exposed to flu either through illness or vaccination.

This article originally published in the February 3, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.