This year’s flu vaccine was not very successful

I completely agree with you(Y)

I don't think they got the vaccine right this year, it's not getting the right strain, according to all the reports.  There are tons of people here in Oklahoma sick too with the flu. My neighbor has the flu and they started him on Tamiflu, according to his wife he had already been sick for about a week before they started him on it (I didn't tell her it was supposed to be started much sooner). He is so sick he can hardly walk by himself, lots of coughing, fever, chills and aches with it. Their Dr. did start her on Tamiflu too, she is not sick as of yet.  Also, the Health Dept did a thing on the news last night, apparantly we also have Norovirus going around here too.

The incubation period for norovirus-associated gastroenteritis in humans is usually between 24 and 48 hours (median in outbreaks 33 to 36 hours), but cases can occur within 12 hours of exposure. Norovirus infection usually presents as acute-onset vomiting, watery non-bloody diarrhea with abdominal cramps, and nausea. Low-grade fever also occasionally occurs, and vomiting is more common in children. Dehydration is the most common complication, especially among the young and elderly, and may require medical attention. Symptoms usually last 24 to 60 hours. Recovery is usually complete and there is no evidence of any serious long-term sequelae. Studies with volunteers given stool filtrates have shown that asymptomatic infection may occur in as many as 30% of infections, although the role of asymptomatic infection in norovirus transmission is not well understood.

 

florida is only local?
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/usmap.htm

On average, the regular flu vaccine usually protects against 70% of the circulating strains.  This 40% is on the lower end, but it's been lower on occasions in the past where it hit around 30% effectivness.  There is just a lot more flu awareness these days so the lower numbers are standing out.  30% - 60% effectivness is not all that uncommon, those are just stats that the CDC doesn't mention all that often.  

Looking at all of the off topic stuff on here at the moment, and the relative lack of flu related postings, I'd say we have a lot of distractions. Remember people - pandemic flu doesn't use the same calendar as seasonal flu so don't drop your guard, and despite what some might say about H5N1 having played itself out - viruses don't have an expiration date. It's still out there.
    

We have a lot of flu cases here in Kansas. Most of them were school aged kids. I have been rotating food and other preps.

I think that this indicates the foolishness of our health authorities. I think the major problem is the lack of competence in the health care sector.

Feds prescribe new recipe for flu shot By LAURAN

NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer
1 hour, 15 minutes ago

Next year's flu vaccine is getting a complete overhaul to provide protection against three new and different influenza strains — hopefully better protection than this year's version.

Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration unanimously backed the new recipe on Thursday, echoing an earlier decision by the World Health Organization. It's a highly unusual move: Seldom are more than one or two strains swapped out from one year to the next.

Now the question is whether vaccine manufacturers can make such a big change in time to produce more than 100 million doses by the fall.

"It's going to be a really busy spring and summer, and of course we're always looking for fallback positions just in case things don't work out well," said Dr. Nancy Cox, flu director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "There's a lot of work that will be going on ... to try and make sure that everything comes together in such a way that there will be plenty of vaccine."

One concern: A strain called Brisbane/10 that's responsible for much of this winter's misery doesn't grow very quickly in the laboratory, potentially complicating already laborious vaccine production.

The flu vaccine must be reformulated every year to keep up with the fast-evolving influenza virus, and this year the government made a rare wrong bet on which strains would cause the most disease. The flu season got off to a slow start, but it rocketed in mid-January as some new strains arrived — and the CDC found the vaccine is a good match for only about 40 percent of the virus now spreading in the U.S.

That Brisbane/10 strain is the big culprit, one first spotted in Australia late last winter, too late for scientists to include in this year's vaccine recipe even if they had predicted it would gain steam.

Flu viruses come in different strains that constantly mutate, until one that few people have immunity against emerges and is able to spread widely. Each year's vaccine contains protection against two varieties of the harsher Type A flu — subtypes known as H1N1 and H3N2 — and one from the more benign Type B family.

CDC and international authorities expect Brisbane/10, a version of the H3N2 flu, to still be around next year. They predict a second new Type A strain, known as H1N1/Brisbane/59, also will hit, along with a newer Type B/Florida strain, prompting Thursday's decision to put all three in next year's vaccine.

It's a gamble based on tracking illness around the globe, and the CDC does have a pretty good record: 16 of the last 19 flu seasons had well-matched vaccines.

Still, "as we always say, influenza is quite unpredictable," Cox cautioned Thursday.

The recipe must be set about eight months before manufacturers start shipping doses because flu vaccine production is so complex. Health authorities come up with seed stocks of the virus strains that manufacturers then must grow in chicken eggs.

Makers of vaccine for the Southern Hemisphere already have added the troublesome Brisbane/10 strain to their own shots, and found it doesn't grow easily. Scientists now are working on a solution to that technical problem, such as using a very similar virus — it's even called "Brisbane/10-like" — found in Uruguay that would provide the same protection, Cox said.

"It's certainly a challenge for all the manufacturers," said Nancy Kavanaugh of Medimmune Inc., which makes a nasal spray flu vaccine, the only non-shot version. "We're working with three new strains. ... There's some unknowns related to those and how they're going to grow."

As for the rest of this winter, the CDC says the current vaccine should provide some protection, perhaps resulting in a milder case of flu than if someone hadn't been inoculated. It's too early to tell if this winter's flu will be more deadly than usual. Every year, the flu infects up to 20 percent of the population, hospitalizes 200,000 people and kills 36,000.

My girl is in the middle of it right now!Its real bad all over i hear!Could these be the first wave?? Just asking

I've been lucky so far.  Everybody around me seems to have gotten sick at least twice this winter and I seem to have dodged it.  I didn't get the flu shot this year nor have I gotten the flu.

Graywolf wrote: My girl is in the middle of it right now!Its real bad all over i hear!Could these be the first wave?? Just asking

What's TFID?

Bahaha I was just shooting a few days ago, I should be okay for a few days.

Sucks arse doesn't it Jacksdad...

I'm just now starting to feel signficantly better, though I've still got the stuffy nose situation. It keeps doing that weird thing where one nostril is plugged, then is switches over... Very annoying.