Vaccine Missing One of Texas' Worst Flu Strains

Nov. 25, 2003
Associated Press

SAN ANTONIO - An early flu season could be the least of Texas' problems as this year's flu vaccine appears to be slightly off target in fighting more severe influenza varieties.

This year's flu shot contains protection for three specific strains of flu. Another strain now circulating in Texas, known as A-Fujian, is not one of them. Doctors are saying that could mean the state is in for a particularly bad and longer-lasting flu season than usual.

The A-Fujian strain first surfaced in Australia and New Zealand earlier this year. By the time it was identified as a potentially dominant strain, it was late in the vaccine manufacturing process, Dr. W. Paul Glezen of the Baylor College of Medicine Influenza Research Center told the San Antonio Express-News for a story in Tuesday's editions.

"It will offer some coverage, but the question is how much coverage," said Roger Sanchez, an epidemiologist at the Metropolitan Health District in San Antonio.

He said that would depend on people's individual immune systems, but children may be at higher risk.

"They haven't been on Earth long enough to get (exposed to) all the different influenza strains that circulate," Sanchez said.

Influenza kills 36,000 people in the United States each year and hospitalizes 114,000 more. During a severe season, it can kill as many as 70,000 people.

Every year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversees a massive effort to determine which strains to include in the annual flu vaccine.

The World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Defense Department help. They by examining and monitoring circulating flu strains in an attempt to predict which will be the most dominant in the Northern Hemisphere come flu season.

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