Newswise — This year's flu vaccine was overall 36 percent effective against all strains and 25 percent effective at preventing the type A H3N2 that caused most of the illness this year, according to an interim report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Dr. Arnold Monto, Thomas Francis Jr Collegiate Professor of Epidemiology, U-M School of Public Health, leads one of the CDC’s five laboratories that tested the flu samples.
"These interim estimates of how well the vaccine protects against the most common influenza virus that is circulating are better than predicted,” Monto said. “Although a better vaccine is needed, particularly when we are confronted by a difficult strain as we were this year with H3N2, the numbers support the importance of getting the vaccine, even this late in the season.”
RSS