Posted by Chris M. on 2/28/2008, 8:37 pm, in reply to "Influenza Is Epidemic..."
Link: Flu vaccination reccomended
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Often we know exactly where we got our infection, and it's often the Grandkids....
Flu vaccines are made essentially by growing various flu's (virus)in eggs, and then killing the flu's(virus) and concentrating the dead remains(killed virus) for a vaccine.
Our bodies do the work by reacting to the mild viral trigger and produce antibodies against the trigger of flu, as if it were a live invader.
Children have very active immune systems and can often beat off flu's and cold virus etc, with ease. The difficulty is that we are seldom as lucky and these gremlins are flying when and where children frequent. It wipes out work forces, health care staff, and families...Our local hospital is now doubling staff to handle the workloads.
The hope is,that if enough children were vaccinated in the future, the spread of flu through schools and day care and workers and families might be greatly reduced by vaccinating most of the children. It might stop it in it's tracks before it infects the population.
The difficulty today is that few children are vaccinated and probably less than 50% of the adult senior population is today vaccinated, creating a playground for Flu to rampage through our populations. This year it's become vastly infective and it brings it closer to becoming epidemic.
The hope seems to be if they demonstrate that Flu can be controlled somewhat by vaccination, the next step is to capture those resistant older folk who just don't think Flu shots are worth it...
As COPD'ers, this is pretty important. Flu vs.cold virus? Higher fever, muscle aches are usually with FLU. Problem with COPD'ers, is we don't always have all the symptoms.
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