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Flu Vaccine Misses the Mark This Year
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
April 29, 2008
Ryan Rivet
rrivet@tulane.edu
Creating
an influenza vaccine from year to year can be a tricky proposition.
It?s considered by many to be as much art as science. Every few years,
scientists can completely miss the mark. This past flu season is one of
those years, according to Robert Garry, professor of microbiology and
immunology at the Tulane University School of Medicine.
Robert Garry, professor of microbiology and immunology at the School
of Medicine, says developing a vaccine every year is not an exact
science. (Photo by Paula Burch-Celentano)
?It happens from time to time,? says Garry.
?They try to collect surveillance data from all over the world and make
an educated guess about which strains will emerge. This year they
failed to predict correctly. It?s not an exact science.?
That is true of any year: researchers try to guess which three strains
of flu will be the most common. This gamble is never completely
accurate. In the best years, flu vaccines are only about 80 percent
effective. This year, however, that number plummeted to around 44
percent, at best.
?The best they can hope for is about 70 to 80 percent coverage,? Garry
says. ?This year is the worst-case scenario ? they missed on two out of
three viruses.?
While dismal statistics may cause some to scratch their heads as to
what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World
Health Organization are doing, Garry said the migratory nature of
people these days, makes the already difficult job of developing a
vaccine that much harder.
?These days, with people flying all over the world, it doesn?t take
much for these viruses to spread. It makes predicting the strains much
more difficult.?
According to Garry, strains typically pop up abroad and are then
transported to the United States. This year, however, one of the more
virulent strains that knocked people down for weeks on end was first
discovered in Florida. This uncommon development left Americans
completely exposed with the current inoculation.
?With these kinds of viruses, people have no immunity to it,? Garry
says. ?But these types of viruses are not going to cause a pandemic.
Conservatively, the 1918 pandemic killed 20 million people. We have
better health care now; we?re not going to see that level of mortality.?
Garry said that the key factor in stopping a case of the flu from
becoming fatal is proper health care, particularly in post-Katrina New
Orleans.
?Access to health care is always an issue, particularly for the
segments of the population that could be killed ? the very young and
the very old. They could definitely be at risk for a secondary
bacterial infection, which is what usually kills. Those at-risk
patients need to see a doctor to get antibiotic treatment.?
Despite the low efficacy of this year?s batch, Garry insists everyone should still get vaccinated before flu season every year.
?It never makes things worse, and half protection is better than no
protection at all. They?re right about the vaccine more often than not.?
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