This year’s flu shot is failing to protect older people against the flu, as the vaccine has shown to be only nine percent effective in people 65 and over. According to Today News Gazette on Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, the strain of flu that is predominate this year is harsh and the flu shot is not warding off the flu for the majority of seniors.
Why this has happened, no one seems to know, but it is baffling the health officials today. Many older people have been hospitalized with the flu this year and now that it is known that the flu shot is only nine percent effective, this helps explain why. The flu season is not over and even with this latest finding, the experts still want seniors to get a flu shot.
The CDC is still recommending everyone over six-months-old get a flu shot, despite the dismal job the vaccine is doing at protecting seniors. Apparently the CDC believes “some protection is better than none,” when still recommending the vaccine for seniors, according to the Gazette. Dr. Joseph Bresee, a CDC flue expert, reports that this vaccine is the “best protection we have.”
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