How Effective Is The Flu Vaccine?

Antigenic Shift and Antigenic Drift in influenza viruses has created a challenge to the modern medical fields. As it is a common characteristic of an influenza virus to change over a period of time, question arises about the effectivity of the vaccines that has been developed against these viruses. Effectivity of the vaccine is not only dependent on the virus but is also dependent on the person who is being vaccinated. Various factors may play an important role in this, but basically personal health state, age and the similarity of the flu virus that the vaccine is developed for, determines the effectivity. As long as the community flu virus matches with the flu vaccine then the effectivity is high, if not then it could turn ineffective.

The effectivity of the flu vaccine differs from person to person. Effectivity percentage in adult is higher compared to the young children and older people. It is obvious that the body immunity goes downhill when we get older and thus flu virus is more dangerous for older peoples. It is thus important for  the older people as well as people with debilitated health conditions and children to get flu vaccines. The following table shows the effectivity of  influenza vaccine from a research that was conducted in Canada.

                         Source: Eurosurveillance

           The effectivity of the vaccine depends upon an individual's immune system. Individuals with weak immune systems experience less effectivity of vaccine. This can happen in persons with chronic diseases. According to CDC the flu vaccine reduces the risk of hospitalization by 30 % to 70% in person with chronic diseases. Thus although there are some controversies about the flu vaccines, it is important that we get vaccine every year. While saying so, do we really need to vaccinate? Do we really know the side effects of the vaccine? What if the influenza virus mutate by the time we vaccinate? Does it worth vaccinating in such situation? My research will be focussed on these question and i will be trying to explore more information about the above mentioned questions.