Is A Booster Dose Recommended For This Vaccine
The first booster dose is recommended for the highest priority-use groups followed by lower priority-use groups, 4-6 months after the completion of the primary series. If more than 6 months have elapsed since completion of the primary series, the booster dose should be given at the earliest opportunity.
WHO recommends countries should consider a second booster dose 4-6 months after the first booster dose for the highest priority-use groups.
There is currently no recommendation for either first or second booster doses in children under the age of 12, except for children with immunocompromising conditions.
If Older People Have Weaker Immune Responses To Flu Vaccination Should They Still Get Vaccinated
Despite the fact that some older adults have weaker immune responses to the influenza A component of flu vaccines, there are many reasons why people in this age group should be vaccinated each year.
Do I Still Need To Wear A Mask And Practice Physical Distancing After I Am Vaccinated
Yes. Until we substantially reduce community transmission of SARS-CoV-2, and see hospitalizations and deaths dramatically decrease, we still need to wear masks and practice physical distancing even after vaccination. The vaccine is not 100% effective and we still do not know if someone who was vaccinated can develop asymptomatic infection and transmit the virus. Although the phase 3 clinical trials were designed to determine whether vaccinated individuals are protected against disease, it will also be important to understand whether vaccinated individuals are less likely to transmit the virus. This is likely but not ensured. If a vaccine not only protects against disease but reduces transmission, and continues to do so for many years, we are likely to reach a state of herd protection when masks and physical distancing will no longer be required. Herd protection is achieved when a sufficient proportion of the population is made non-infectious through vaccination or natural infection so that the likelihood of an infectious individual transmitting to a susceptible individual is very low.
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Why Should People Get Vaccinated Against Flu
Influenza is a potentially serious disease that can lead to hospitalization and sometimes even death. Every flu season is different, and flu can affect people differently, but during typical flu seasons, millions of people get flu every year, hundreds of thousands of people are hospitalized and thousands to tens of thousands of people die from flu-related causes. Flu can mean a few days of feeling bad and missing work, school, or family events, or it can result in more serious illness. Complications of flu can include bacterial pneumonia, ear infections, sinus infections and worsening of chronic medical conditions, such as congestive heart failure, asthma, or diabetes. An annual seasonal flu vaccine is the best way to help reduce the risk of getting flu and any of its potentially serious complications. Vaccination has been shown to have many benefits including reducing the risk of flu illnesses, hospitalizations and even the risk of flu-related death. While some people who get a flu vaccine may still get sick with influenza, flu vaccination has been shown in several studies to reduce severity of illness.
Are Flu Vaccines Effective Against All Types Of Flu And Cold Viruses
Seasonal flu vaccines are designed to protect against infection and illness caused by the four flu viruses that research indicates will be most common during the upcoming flu season. Flu vaccines do not protect against infection and illness caused by other viruses that also can cause flu-like symptoms. There are many other viruses besides flu viruses that can result in flu-like illness* that spread during the flu season. These non-flu viruses include rhinovirus and respiratory syncytial virus , which is the most common cause of severe respiratory illness in young children, and a major cause of severe respiratory illness in adults 65 years and older.
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What Does The Research Show So Far
The jury is still out, but a growing number of studies suggest that getting a Covid vaccine can reduce though not eliminate the risk of longer-term symptoms.
The United Kingdoms Health Security Agency conducted an analysis of eight studies that had been published on the topic before mid-January. It reported that six of the studies found that vaccinated people who became infected with the coronavirus were less likely than unvaccinated patients to develop symptoms of long Covid. The remaining two studies found that vaccination did not appear to conclusively reduce the chances of developing long Covid.
Why Are There So Many Different Outcomes For Vaccine Effectiveness Studies
Vaccine effectiveness studies that measure different outcomes are conducted to better understand the different kinds of benefits provided by vaccination. Ideally, public health researchers want to evaluate the benefits of vaccination against illness of varying severity. To do this, they assess how well flu vaccines work to prevent illness resulting in a doctor visit, or illness resulting in hospitalization, ICU admission, and even death associated with flu. Because estimates of vaccine effectiveness may vary based on the outcome measured , results should be compared between studies that used the same outcome for estimating vaccine effectiveness.
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Do Vaccines Weaken The Immune System
Vaccinated children are not at greater risk of other infections than unvaccinated children. On the contrary, in Germany, a study of 496 vaccinated and unvaccinated children found that children who received immunizations against diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, Haemophilus influenzae type b and polio within the first three months of life had fewer infections with vaccine-related and unrelated pathogens than the non-vaccinated group.
Bacterial and viral infections, on the other hand, often predispose children and adults to severe, invasive infections with other pathogens. For example, children with pneumococcal pneumonia are more likely to have had a recent influenza infection than other children. Similarly, varicella infection increases susceptibility to the ‘flesh-eating bacteria .
What Are The Main Factors That Influence Which Viruses Are Selected For Use In Flu Vaccine Production Each Year
The flu viruses in seasonal flu vaccines are selected each year based on a variety of data, including the following:
In some years certain influenza viruses may not circulate until later in the influenza season, making it difficult to prepare a candidate vaccine virus in time for vaccine production. This can make vaccine virus selection very challenging.
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The Body’s Natural Response
A pathogen is a bacterium, virus, parasite or fungus that can cause disease within the body. Each pathogen is made up of several subparts, usually unique to that specific pathogen and the disease it causes. The subpart of a pathogen that causes theformation of antibodies is called an antigen. The antibodies produced in response to the pathogens antigen are an important part of the immune system. You can consider antibodies as the soldiers in your bodys defense system. Eachantibody, or soldier, in our system is trained to recognize one specific antigen. We have thousands of different antibodies in our bodies. When the human body is exposed to an antigen for the first time, it takes time for the immune system torespond and produce antibodies specific to that antigen.
In the meantime, the person is susceptible to becoming ill.
This means that if the person is exposed to the dangerous pathogen in the future, their immune system will be able to respond immediately, protecting against disease.
The Vaccines Used To Protect Against Coronavirus
The coronavirus vaccine does not cause a coronavirus infection. It helps to build up your immunity to the virus, so your body will fight it off more easily if it affects you. The coronavirus vaccines do not contain a live virus. This can reduce your risk of developing coronavirus and make your symptoms milder if you do get it.
The safety and effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccines continues to be checked while in use.
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Can Sick Children Receive Vaccines
Some parents might be concerned that children with acute illnesses are less likely to respond to vaccines or are more likely to develop severe reactions to vaccines than are healthy children. Alternatively, some parents might believe that children who are ill shouldn’t further burden an immune system already committed to fighting an infection. However, vaccine-specific antibody responses and rates of vaccine-associated adverse reactions of children with mild or moderate illnesses are comparable to those of healthy children. For example, the presence of upper respiratory tract infections, ear infections, fever, skin infections or diarrhea does not affect the level of protective antibodies induced by immunization.
Data on the capacity of vaccines to induce protective immune responses in children with severe infections are lacking. Although a delay in vaccines is recommended for children with severe illnesses until the symptoms of illness resolve, this recommendation is not based on the likelihood that the child will have an inadequate immune response to the vaccine. Rather, the reason for deferring immunization is to avoid superimposing a reaction to the vaccine on the underlying illness or to mistakenly attribute a manifestation of the underlying illness to the vaccine.
Why Is It Important To Get Vaccinated Even If There Are New Variants Of The Virus
Vaccines are a critical tool in the battle against COVID-19, and there are clear public health and lifesaving benefits to using the tools we already have. We must not put off getting vaccinated because of our concerns about new variants, and we must proceed with vaccination even if the vaccines may be somewhat less effective against some of the COVID-19 virus variants. Weneed to use the tools we have in hand even while we continue to improve those tools. We are all safe only if everyone is safe.
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Is It True That Getting Vaccinated Repeatedly Can Reduce Vaccine Effectiveness
A report examining studies from the 2010-2011 to the 2014-2015 seasons concluded that the effectiveness of a flu vaccine may be influenced by vaccination the prior season or during many prior seasons . In some seasons, protection against influenza A virus illness may have been lower for people vaccinated in the current season and the prior season compared with those who had only been vaccinated in the current season. This fits with findings on immune response to vaccination that suggest repeated influenza vaccination can weaken the immune response to vaccination and especially to the H3N2 vaccine component. However, repeated annual vaccination also can be beneficial during some seasons, since sometimes people retain and carry over immune protection from one season to the next. During some seasons, people who missed getting vaccinated still had residual protection against influenza illness.
If These Diseases Are So Rare Why Does My Child Need To Be Vaccinated
All of the diseases that we vaccinate against exist in the world today. Therefore, if your child has not been vaccinated, there is still a risk that they could get the disease and become very sick. We know that decreases in vaccination uptake can result in outbreaks of diseases such as measles.5 Regular vaccination is needed to keep our children healthy, prevent outbreaks from occurring and to eventually eradicate these diseases altogether. Infectious diseases are easily passed from person to person and entire communities can rapidly become infected. If a high enough proportion of a community is protected by vaccination, it makes it difficult for the disease to spread because the number of people who can be infected is so small.
Your immune system is there to protect you by vaccinating your child, you give his/her immune system all the tools it needs to keep them safe from many severe diseases – Meike Heurich-Sevcenco, BSI Vaccine Champion
This type of protection is known as herd immunity and is particularly crucial for some individuals who are unable to receive some vaccines. This may include those that are too young, undergoing certain medical treatment or have a health condition that impairs the function of their immune system . Declines in herd immunity caused by decreasing vaccination rates have recently caused outbreaks of measles and whooping cough in the UK.6,7
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What Happens After A Recommendation Has Been Made About Which Viruses Should Be Included In The Seasonal Flu Vaccine
As soon as recommendations have been made about what viruses should be included in the vaccine, private sector manufacturers begin the process of producing vaccine. In fact, some manufacturers may start growing one or more viruses for use in production of vaccine even before a WHO recommendation or FDA decision is made on the vaccine viruses. This gives manufacturers more time to make vaccine ahead of the season the more time a manufacturer has to make vaccine, the greater the number of doses that can be produced.
What Are Factors That Influence How Well Flu Vaccines Work
How well flu vaccines work can vary from season to season. Protection can vary depending on who is being vaccinated. At least two factors play an important role in determining the likelihood that vaccination will protect a person from flu illness: 1) characteristics of the person being vaccinated , and 2) how well the vaccines match the flu viruses spreading in the community. When flu vaccines are not well matched to one or more circulating influenza viruses, it is possible that vaccination may provide little or no protection from illness caused by those viruses, but still provide protection against other flu viruses that circulate during the season. When there is a good match between flu vaccines and circulating viruses, vaccination provides substantial benefits by preventing flu illness and complications.
Each flu season, researchers try to determine how well flu vaccines work as a public health intervention. Estimates of how well a flu vaccine works can vary based on study design, outcome measured, population studied and type of flu vaccine. Differences between studies must be considered when results are compared.
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The Coronavirus Vaccine You’ll Be Offered
A variety of coronavirus vaccines are available. You’ll be offered the most suitable one for your condition or age. It may be the same or a different vaccine than you had before.
For a limited number of people, the vaccine you receive will depend on clinical reasons. For example, severe allergy or having a severely weakened immune system.
Why Should My Child Get A Painful Shot If Vaccines Aren’t 100% Effective
Few things in medicine work 100% of the time. But vaccines are one of the most effective weapons we have against disease they work in 85% to 99% of cases. They greatly reduce your child’s risk of serious illness and give diseases fewer chances to take hold in a population.
It can be hard to watch kids get a shot, but the short-term pain is nothing compared with suffering through a potentially deadly bout of diphtheria, whooping cough, or measles.
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How Do Viral Vaccines Work
Our immune system learns how to protect us from pathogens when we encounter them in nature. Every pathogen has unique parts called antigens, which the immune system uses to distinguish one pathogen from another. The immune system remembers all the antigens it has encountered. Memory cells are a type of immune cell that respond quickly to antigens that the body has encountered in the past. However, when a new pathogen invades the bodyone that the immune system has not encountered beforeit can take several days before the immune system mounts an effective attack. During this time, the pathogen can reproduce and spread rapidly inside the body, potentially causing deadly disease. Since some pathogens are extremely deadly, an infected person may die before they build up a strong immune response to the pathogen. Additionally, some pathogens mutate rapidly, which makes it harder for the immune system to recognize them during subsequent infections.
How Well Do Vaccines Protect Against Long Covid
Now, Kulick is usually so exhausted, she canât walk nonstop for 15 minutes. She recently tried to take her 4-year-old son, Cooper, to the American Museum of Natural History for his first visit, but ended up on a bench outside the museum, sobbing in the rain, because she couldnât even get through the first hurdle of standing in line. âI just wanted to be there with my kid,â she says.
Kulick got sick with COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, 9 months before the first vaccine would be approved. Now she is among the estimated one in five infected Americans, or 19%, whose symptoms developed into long COVID.
Kulick also is now vaccinated and boosted. Had a vaccine been available sooner, could it have protected her from long COVID?
Evidence is starting to show itâs likely.
âThe best way not to have long COVID is not to have COVID at all,â says Leora Horwitz, MD, a professor of population health and medicine at New York Universityâs Grossman School of Medicine. âTo the extent that vaccination can prevent you from getting COVID at all, then it helps to reduce long COVID.â
And just as vaccines reduce the risk of severe disease, hospitalization and death, they also seem to reduce the risk of long COVID if people do get breakthrough infections. People with more serious initial illness appear more likely to have prolonged symptoms, but those with milder disease can certainly get it, too.
How Vaccinations Affect People Who Already Have Long COVID
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