Effectiveness of Flu Vaccination
Every year during flu season healthcare professionals advise people to get inoculated against the flu. However recent studies have suggested that the current influenza vaccine effectiveness may be influenced by vaccinations from prior seasons. This should be taken into consideration when deciding how effective flu vaccinations are. It has been suggested that previous vaccines may interfere with the current vaccine effectiveness (VE), lowering it and thus being less effective than for those who have no prior history of inoculation. Skowronski et al. (2017) covered a group of individuals for two flu seasons to record the VE and then did a follow up article to further support their findings for the following flu …show more content…
The reason for the decreased administered vaccine in those tested is due to interference between the prior and current flu shots. The antigenic similarities between the vaccines is believed to be the reason for this occurrence. This reflected in a 65% VE for those with no vaccine history and 33% for those with consecutive vaccinations (Skowronksi et al., …show more content…
(2018) compared annual to alternative flu vaccinations taking into account vaccine interference (VI) defined as prior flu shot disrupting current VE. They found that those with alternate vaccination history had higher rates of VE than those with annual vaccination history. Half the subjects studied received at most 60% effectiveness and those with alternate received 80% effectiveness considering VI (Shim et al., 2018). The remaining subjects’ data were excluded due to being statistically insignificant. Their results provided further evidence that a negative relationship exists between history of prior vaccinations and upcoming season’s, and even an off season of non-vaccination proved to confer more vaccine
Every year during flu season healthcare professionals advise people to get inoculated against the flu. However recent studies have suggested that the current influenza vaccine effectiveness may be influenced by vaccinations from prior seasons. This should be taken into consideration when deciding how effective flu vaccinations are. It has been suggested that previous vaccines may interfere with the current vaccine effectiveness (VE), lowering it and thus being less effective than for those who have no prior history of inoculation. Skowronski et al. (2017) covered a group of individuals for two flu seasons to record the VE and then did a follow up article to further support their findings for the following flu …show more content…
The reason for the decreased administered vaccine in those tested is due to interference between the prior and current flu shots. The antigenic similarities between the vaccines is believed to be the reason for this occurrence. This reflected in a 65% VE for those with no vaccine history and 33% for those with consecutive vaccinations (Skowronksi et al., …show more content…
(2018) compared annual to alternative flu vaccinations taking into account vaccine interference (VI) defined as prior flu shot disrupting current VE. They found that those with alternate vaccination history had higher rates of VE than those with annual vaccination history. Half the subjects studied received at most 60% effectiveness and those with alternate received 80% effectiveness considering VI (Shim et al., 2018). The remaining subjects’ data were excluded due to being statistically insignificant. Their results provided further evidence that a negative relationship exists between history of prior vaccinations and upcoming season’s, and even an off season of non-vaccination proved to confer more vaccine