Protect yourself and others — get the flu vaccine

The flu hit early and hard this sea­son, and the out­break has yet to run its course. We don’t know how long it will last or how many peo­ple will be infected, but it’s not too late to take pre­ven­tive action.

The flu sea­son usu­ally peaks in Jan­u­ary or Feb­ru­ary, but we began see­ing a high num­ber of influenza-related hos­pi­tal­iza­tions in early Decem­ber. Through the week end­ing Jan. 5, Ohio has seen nearly 2,000 flu-associated hos­pi­tal­iza­tions, com­pared to 86 dur­ing the same time period last sea­son and 175 two sea­sons ago, accord­ing to the Ohio Depart­ment of Health.

The yearly flu vac­cine is still the first and most impor­tant step in pro­tect­ing against the flu virus. It takes about two weeks for the vac­cine to become effec­tive. Con­tact your health­care provider as soon as pos­si­ble to receive the vaccine.

Stud­ies at the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol indi­cate that this year’s vac­cine low­ers the risk of get­ting the flu by about 60 per­cent. Remem­ber that you are not only receiv­ing the vac­cine to pro­tect your­self but also to pro­tect oth­ers with whom you come in contact.

Con­trary to a pop­u­lar and per­sis­tent notion, you can­not get the flu from a flu shot because the viruses in the shot are inac­tive. Over the years, mil­lions of Amer­i­cans have been safely vac­ci­nated against the flu. A nasal-spray flu vac­cine offers an alter­na­tive to the flu shot for healthy peo­ple ages 2 through 49 who are not pregnant.

Every­one 6 months of age and older should get a flu vac­cine, but vac­ci­na­tion is espe­cially impor­tant for peo­ple at high risk for com­pli­ca­tions. These include the fol­low­ing: preg­nant women; peo­ple age 65 and older; peo­ple with cer­tain chronic med­ical con­di­tions such as asthma, dia­betes and heart or lung con­di­tions; peo­ple liv­ing in nurs­ing homes and long-term care facil­i­ties; and peo­ple — such as care­givers of young chil­dren and health­care work­ers — who live with or care for those at high risk.

Even if you have already had the flu but have not received the vac­cine, vac­ci­na­tion can still add pro­tec­tion against addi­tional strains.

For most peo­ple this sea­son, the flu is last­ing any­where from three days to two weeks and has one or more of the fol­low­ing symp­toms: fever and chills, fatigue, an “achy” feel­ing, con­ges­tion, headaches and coughing.

In addi­tion to the flu shot, every­day behav­iors can stop the spread of flu germs. These include fre­quent hand-washing, avoid­ing close con­tact with sick peo­ple, cov­er­ing your nose and mouth with a tis­sue when you cough or sneeze (the tis­sue should then be dis­carded), clean­ing and dis­in­fect­ing sur­faces that may be con­t­a­m­i­nated with flu germs and avoid­ing touch­ing your eyes, nose and mouth.

If you hap­pen to get the flu, cer­tain pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tions can shorten its dura­tion, mit­i­gate symp­toms and pre­vent seri­ous com­pli­ca­tions. These antivi­ral drugs work best when taken within two days of get­ting sick, but start­ing them later can still be help­ful. Tam­i­flu and Relenza are two antivi­ral drugs rec­om­mended by the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol. They should not be con­sid­ered a sub­sti­tute for vac­ci­na­tion but used in addi­tion to it.

Dr. Jes­sica Long is a fam­ily med­i­cine physi­cian with Sun­bury Fam­ily Prac­tice and a mem­ber of the Ohio­Health Grady Memo­r­ial Hos­pi­tal med­ical staff.

Posted by Grady Memorial Hospital on Jan 17 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.