United States: The estimates by the health experts in the US state that the flu shots are performing fine during the current winter flu season.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made suggestions that for the adults, the vaccine was 40 percent more effective in preventing them from getting sick from the flu.
On Wednesday, the CDC’s report also mentioned that the vaccination among children made them 60 percent less likely to get treatment at a doctor’s office or hospital.
Effectiveness of Vaccine – CDC
If the flu vaccine shows 40 percent to 60 percent efficacy, then officials call the vaccine’s work to be effective.
However, as per the officials, the vaccination shots perform better when they are properly matched against the flu strains currently in circulation.
In the United States, annual vaccination for flu is prescribed to anyone who is six months and older, as ABC News reported.
Additionally, as revealed by the CDC, almost half of the eligible kids, along with about half of the adults who, have received flu shots in the past several years.
Systems developed by the CDC to monitor flu vaccines
There are several systems developed by the CDC to track the vaccination program for measles in the US. One is creating a network of hospitals that offers information about how the vaccines that prevent flu-related illnesses are performing with respect to requiring them to admit,
Another system records outpatient data collected from urgent care clinics and emergency departments at the hospitals.
As per the estimates generated at four different surveillance systems, which were presented on Wednesday at a meeting, that made advice on vaccines.
The effectiveness in adults is similar to what CDC reports said about it during the last flu season. However, the shots proved less effective in during few other recent cases, in which the results were influenced by the prevalence of a particular kind of strain, as well as on how well the vaccines were matched to it, as ABC News reported.
Some question the effectiveness of vaccine experts
However, other Committee members expressed disappointment at reports about the effectiveness of the vaccines.
Dr. Sarah Long of Drexel University said, “There seems to be diminishing returns for annual influenza immunization,” as ABC News reported.
It is also said that continued and long usage of vaccinations on a yearly basis might have led to diminishing immune responses against fresh strains, as ABC News reported.
CDC officials also reported to have been worried about the same question. However, no conclusive results have been made so far. Dr. Lisa Grohskopf of the CDC said, “One thing that does seem to arise consistently from these things is that, in general, you are better off if you got vaccinated than if you didn’t.”