Your Best Defense Is a Strong Offense

The best line of defense against the flu is an annual flu vaccine, even though the vaccine isn’t a perfect solution. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that anyone who can get a flu vaccine should, especially those who fall into high-risk categories.

Despite this across the board support for the flu vaccine, there are still many misconceptions and myths surrounding the flu and the flu vaccine that need to be addressed to increase prevention:

Myth: You should be more afraid of Ebola than the flu.

Fact: The flu kills more people each year in the United States alone than Ebola has killed in the history of its existence. For the 35,000 people who die annually in the United States from complications from flu, Ebola has claimed 5,021 deaths. Worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 250,000 to 500,000 deaths occur as a result of influenza and complications. If that isn’t scary enough, consider that the infamous 1918 flu epidemic killed approximately 50 million people worldwide.

While Ebola certainly has a higher mortality rate once you’ve caught the disease, because it is only spread by direct contact with fluids and not airborne, the risk of contamination is far lower. And an outbreak is far easier to contain, especially in Western countries with a strong healthcare infrastructure.

Myth: You got a flu vaccine last year, so you should still be okay this year.

Fact: There is no one-size-fits-all vaccine for flu. The flu vaccine is formulated each year to protect against three (trivalent) or four (quadrivalent) strains that the WHO believes are the most likely to circulate during that flu season. Because the strains of influenza circulating last year are not necessarily the ones that will be circulating during this flu season, it’s important that you get an annual flu shot so that your body has a chance to develop the right antibodies against the proper strains of flu that are circulating in these communities.