The effectiveness of this season’s flu shot has been extremely low, with the vaccine preventing only 10-20 per cent of infections caused by the dominant H3N2 strain affecting Canadians, researchers have found. These providers make up the Canadian Sentinel Practitioner Surveillance Network that monitors how well the influenza vaccine protects people from influenza. Network researchers analyzed the data and found that overall, the flu shot was 17 per cent effective in preventing the respiratory illness from the H3N2 virus, but only 10 per cent effective for working-age adults 20 to 64. A 55 per cent vaccine effectiveness suggests there is good cross-protection between the two B strains, said Skowronski. It would be lovely to have a flu vaccine that was 100 per cent effective .

Source: thestar February 01, 2018 22:44 UTC