Flu Vaccine Update: The 2013 Flu Shot

Somewhere in between hot summer weather turning to autumn, bright red leaves falling from trees, and snowflakes starting to fall, the fifth season of the year sets in — flu season.
Flu season officially starts in the late fall and continues into the early spring. And breaking out your sweaters and hanging up your Halloween decorations means it's time for your annual flu shot. Flu vaccines are already available at local pharmacies and drug stores and will make its way into clinics across the country. Here’s what you need to know about this year’s flu vaccine.

The 2013 Flu Vaccine

For the 2013-2014 flu season, there will be two vaccines: a trivalent vaccine that is made from three inactivated viruses researchers believe will be prevalent during flu season, and a quadrivalent vaccine containing four inactivated viruses.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the trivalent vaccine consists of these three flu strains:

• an A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus;
• an A(H3N2) virus antigenically like the cell-propagated prototype virus A/Victoria/361/2011;
• a B/Massachusetts/2/2012-like virus.

For the quadrivalent vaccine, the CDC recommends it contain, “two influenza B viruses include the above three viruses and a B/Brisbane/60/2008-like virus.”
The quadrivalent vaccine will be in much shorter supply—vaccine manufacturers have projected they will make between 135 and 139 million doses of the flu shot for this season, and about 30 to 32 million of those will be the quadrivalent vaccine. Most of the the quadrivalent will be in the nasal spray form.
"The CDC has a very complicated way of mapping and tracking all these different viruses going around, and they try to predict which strains will be most rampant this year," says Kathryn Teng, MD, a physician in the department of internal medicine and director of clinical integration of personalized healthcare at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. They usually get it right, but not always.

Who Needs a Flu Shot?

Just because you got a seasonal flu shot last year doesn't mean you're off the hook this season. "The flu vaccine is different from year to year," says Dr. Teng, so that means it's a different vaccine every year. "Plus, the vaccine only lasts for a few months at a time.”
It takes two weeks after vaccination for antibodies to develop against the flu viruses, so people should not put off getting the shot.
Generally, anyone with a compromised immune system should protect themselves every flu season with a flu shot. This generally includes:

• Pregnant women
• The elderly
• Anyone with a chronic condition like diabetes or asthma
• Anyone taking medications that suppress the immune system
• Anyone with HIV or AIDS

People who live or work around chronically ill people (such as in a nursing facility or hospital) should also get vaccinated to protect themselves. All children over the age of 6 months old, as well as teenagers, should get the flu vaccine each year.
There are four different types of flu vaccine available:

• The regular shot approved for those 6 months and older.
• A high-dose shot approved for those 65 years and older.
• An intradermal shot approved for those 18 to 64 years old, a vaccine where the needle only goes into the skin, not the muscle.
• A nasal-spray vaccine, made with a live, weakened virus given as a nasal spray, is approved for those 2 to 49 years old who are in good health. The CDC notes this vaccine does not cause the flu.

If I Get the Shot, Can I Get the Flu?

Even if you get your recommended flu vaccine, you may still get sick.
It's important to understand that the flu shot has its limits as to how well it can protect you, and that it may not be able to completely shield you from getting a strain of the flu. But that doesn't mean that it's not still important to your health for you to get a flu shot — especially if you're at a high risk for developing severe complications of the flu.
If you get a flu shot and still end up getting sick with the flu, there's a benefit. "It [the flu vaccine] makes it less severe," says Teng. So you'll have less debilitating symptoms and be back on your feet faster than you would if you hadn't gotten your flu shot.
Of course, frequent hand washing and avoiding contact with sick people are also important in warding off the flu. But this year's combined flu shot should make protecting yourself just a little less painful, with only one needlestick to go through.