Influenza Survey Finds People Afraid of Getting Flu from Vaccine

Every year December marks the beginning of a new flu season. The Center for Disease Control, CDC, estimates that the influenza virus is responsible for nearly 36,000 deaths and 200,000 hospitalizations each year. Despite these facts, many people this year won't be receiving a flu vaccination, not because of vaccine shortages, but due to the misconception that they can contract the virus from the vaccine. A recent survey released by the National Foundation of Infectious Diseases found over 50% of the 1,014 surveyed would not receive the flu vaccine and that 46% of the total surveyed were afraid of becoming infected with influenza through the vaccine.

What you should know about the influenza virus, the vaccination, and preventing the flu.

How the influenza virus works.
The influenza virus is a respiratory illness. The virus enters the body through the respiratory tract and attacks the cells. The virus binds to the cell, enters the cell, and begins to replicate. The respiratory tissues swell up and the infected cells enter into the bloodstream, replicating more and more. The symptoms, coughing, sneezing, fever, body aches, congestion, and tiredness, begin to emerge. These symptoms can last several days until the immune system begins to fight off the virus.

Healthy people infected with the influenza virus can spread the illness one day before symptoms appear and up to five days after becoming ill.

How the influenza vaccine is made.
The influenza virus is collected at laboratories and the CDC for evaluation, which includes testing the response of the antibodies of the previous year's vaccination to the influenza strings currently in circulation. The information found by the laboratories is presented to a committee in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and at a World Health Organization meeting once a year. The three strings of the influenza virus, representative of the influenza viruses circulating among people in a given year, are chosen to create the new vaccination. These three strings of influenza are incubated in a chicken egg, killed and extracted, then bottled and sold.

How the vaccines are given.
The influenza vaccine is given either by injection or nasal spray. The injection is usually given in the arm and contains inactivated, or killed, virus. The injection is approved for people over 6 months old. The nasal spray contains attenuated, or weakened, viruses and is approved for people between the ages of five and forty-nine.

How the vaccinations work.
Once the vaccinations are given, antibodies develop in the body approximately two weeks later, which protect against the influenza virus.

The best ways to prevent the flu:
-Receive the flu vaccinations every year.
Flu vaccinations change every year to vaccinate against the current influenza strings in circulation.
-Avoid close contact with those infected with the flu.
-Wash your hands.
-Don't rub your eyes, nose, or mouth.
Most germs enter the body through the nose, mouth, and eyes.
-Take a multivitamin
Boost your immune system

People who are at highest risk for complications from contracting the influenza virus are children ages six months to five months, people over fifty years of age, people with chronic medical conditions, people living in nursing homes or long term care facilities, and pregnant women.

People who should not receive the vaccine include those who are severely allergic to eggs, those who have had any reaction to the vaccination in the past, anyone diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, children less than six months old, and anyone with a mild to severe fever should wait until the fever, and any symptoms associated to the fever, lessen.