Question

In regard to healthcare epidemics, how does a person's choice to vaccinate or not to vaccinate against influenza play into this concern?

Answer 1

Influenza or simply the flu is caused by the influenza virus and almost everyone has had the flu at some point. HIgh fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, sneezing and feeling tired are the most common symptoms. It usually improves within a week but occasionally someone can go being completely healthy to being seriously ill requiring hospitalization or even care in the ICU. The flu spreads when a sick person sneezes or coughs and sends thousand of virus containing droplets into the local area which can sometime directly land on another person's nose or mouth. But more often they end up landing over nearby objects. But the concern is that the flu virus is very hardy and can remain in the environment for hours. To make matters worse, a person may be contagious a day before the symptoms even begin and upto two weeks afterwards. The most effective way to prevent influenza is through vaccination, which can be done as an injection or nasal spray. These vaccines usually contain a mix of weakened or inactivated influenza virus strains that are predicted to be the ones that will dominate for a specific season. Because flu virus mutate rapidly, these vaccines are updated twice a year. With regard to healthcare epidemics, high risk individuals like pregnant women, those with chronic health conditions, infants under 6 months or those above 65 years of age are more susceptible to the flu despite being vaccinated. Secondly, since the vaccines are based on predictions, some years are better than others. However on an average, the vaccine reduces the risk of illness by rough half from about 10% to about 5% in terms of the likelihood of getting sick over the entire flu season. The concern arises when for any given year, the population decides that since the risk of getting flu is quite low, it is worth getting the vaccine. But, one thing to notice here is that the flu can do much damage than expected and even death in some cases. Getting vaccinated decreases the chances of getting as well as passing the flu to someone else. Therefore, the more people in the community that are vaccinated against flu, the fewer people will contract and spread the flu. This protect those who can not get vaccinated like infants under 6 months.