The Boston Globe yesterday commented on advances toward developing a vaccine against all strains of flu, saying in part:
News that researchers have made advances toward developing a vaccine against all strains of flu offers hope that getting a flu shot will someday be a once-in-a-lifetime event, not a once-a-year one. As things stand, though, far too few Americans get vaccinated before each flu season — and the healthcare industry itself sets a poor example.
That’s right: Less than half of the staffers at hospitals and nursing homes get annual flu vaccines, according to the Infectious Diseases Society of America. The society says the rate has not budged much in recent years. This poor showing is in spite of the 36,000 deaths to flu each year, as well as the concern about the highly dangerous strain known as bird flu. In part, public health officials want to make vaccines against existing strains of flu more routine to be better prepared for the mass vaccinations a bird flu pandemic would require.
The elderly are the most likely to die from the flu, but there are victims of all ages, including a 12-year-old Boston boy last month. Annual vaccines are needed because scientists must first predict what strains of the virus will be most common, and then design a vaccine to provide immunity against them.
Researchers from Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in California believe they have found a way to attack a part of the flu virus that does not mutate, raising the possibility of a one-size-fits-all inoculation.
An annual flu vaccine “is a professional and ethical responsibility,” says Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. Healthcare leaders must make sure their staff members accept that responsibility.
