Doctor Alert: The flu is back. here’s what to know

After the flu hit a historically low level covid-19 pandemic, it may be ready to return. Key clue: A bad flu season just ended in Australia.

While there’s no way to predict whether America will hit that hard, “Last year we were going into flu season not knowing if the flu was around. This year we know the flu is back.” ,” said influenza specialist Richard Webby of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.

Annual flu shots are recommended starting at 6 months old. The flu is most dangerous for people 65 and older, young children, pregnant women, and people with certain health problems, including heart and lung diseases.

Here’s what to know:

Modified Shots for Seniors

As people get older, their immune systems don’t respond as strongly to standard flu vaccinations. This year, people aged 65 and above have been urged to get a special type of protection for added protection.

There are three options. Fluzone High Dose And Flublok each contains high doses of the main anti-flu ingredient. Another option is Fluad Adjuvanted, which has a regular dosage but contains a special ingredient that helps boost people’s immune responses.

Seniors may ask what kind of doctor their doctor is. But most flu vaccines are given in pharmacies and some drugstore websites, such as CVS, automatically direct people to places offering senior doses if their date of birth shows they are eligible.

Webby recommends making sure older relatives and friends know about senior shots if they aren’t told when they want to be vaccinated.

“They should at least ask, ‘Do you have better shots for me? Webby said. “The bottom line is they work better” for this age group.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, if a location is outside senior-target doses, it’s better to get a standard flu shot than to skip vaccination.

All flu vaccines in the U.S. — including the type for people under 65 — are “quadrivalent,” which means they protect against four different flu strains. Little ones have options too, including shots and a nasal spray version for people with egg allergies. It’s called FluMist.

Why are flu experts cautious?

Australia just experienced its worst flu season Dr. Andrew Pecos, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said what happens over five years and in the southern hemisphere’s winter often foreshadows what northern countries can expect.

And people have largely abandoned the masking and distancing precautions that earlier in the pandemic also helped prevent the spread of other respiratory insects like the flu.

“This poses a risk especially to young children, who may not have had any previous exposure to the influenza virus prior to this season,” Pecos said.

Pediatric infectious disease specialist at Washington University in St. Louis, Dr. “This year we will have a real influenza season like the one we saw before the pandemic,” Jason Newland said.

He said children’s hospitals are already seeing an unusual early spike in other respiratory infections, including RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, and worry the flu will strike even earlier than usual – as it did in Australia.

The CDC recommends getting flu vaccines by the end of October but says they can be given at any time during flu season. The protection takes about two weeks to set up.

The US expects 173 million to 183 million doses this year. And yes, you can get a flu shot and an updated COVID-19 booster at the same time – one in each hand to reduce soreness.

future flu shots

Companies that make the two most widely used COVID-19 vaccines are now testing flu shots made with the same technology. One reason: When influenza mutates, recipes for so-called mRNA vaccines can be updated more quickly than today’s flu shots, most of which are made from growing influenza virus in chicken eggs.

Pfizer and its partner BioNTech are recruiting 25,000 healthy American adults to receive either its experimental influenza shot or a routine type, to see how effective the new approach proves to be this flu season.

Rival Moderna tested its version in about 6,000 people in Australia, Argentina and other countries during the southern hemisphere’s flu season and is awaiting results.

This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed. Only the title has been changed.