As the season starts to change, with temperatures dropping, daylight hours growing shorter, and children heading back to school, it’s time to start thinking about your annual flu shot.
Each year, new strains of the flu put millions of Americans on their backs with symptoms, such as fever, vomiting, and fatigue. For some, flu is just a few days or weeks of unpleasant symptoms. For others, including seniors, the flu has a good chance of becoming something more serious.
A flu shot puts you one step ahead in the game of protecting yourself and your loved ones from this potentially dangerous respiratory infection. At Healthstone Primary Care of Weston, Pembroke Pines, and Davie, Florida, our team of primary care and geriatrics specialists offer all the vaccines you need to keep you in good health year-round.
This year, you and your family don’t need to suffer from the flu. Your annual flu vaccine is specially designed to give you the best possible protection against the flu strains that research shows are likely to become dominant later in the year.
Flu vaccines effectively reduce your risk of contracting the flu in a defined flu season by as much as 40%-60%. But, unlike other safe and effective vaccines we provide at Healthstone Primary, the flu shot needs to be updated yearly. That’s because the flu changes or mutates from year to year.
Flu shots are a good idea for anyone in your family over the age of six months, but flu vaccination is especially important for children, as well as for seniors over the age of 65, owing to increased risks to the young and elders from the flu. Flu vaccination is also safe for people who are pregnant.
There’s a worldwide yearly research effort to keep track of flu strains and mutations. Did you know that 142 centers in 113 countries are needed to observe and document the flu as part of an international influenza research network?
These centers collect data on the flu each year and return their findings to one of five World Health Organization Collaborating Centers for Reference and Research on Influenza, including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each time the flu virus adapts, researchers are ready with reformulated vaccines to give specific and targeted protection against this year’s dominant strain or strains.
Even if you got a flu shot last year, you need an update before flu season begins in the autumn and winter of this year. The protection you received from your shot last year also declines over time, leaving you less-than-shielded against this year’s flu season.
To learn why it’s so important to keep your flu vaccination current with the new flu shot each year, get in touch with the team at Healthstone Primary today. Schedule your appointment online or call now to book.
