Imagine going to the doctor's office for a routine physical. Your doctor tells you that you are in wonderful condition for a person your age. However . . . (I hate it when doctors say that word), you need to have a flu shot. Not again you reply. I got my flu shot last year.
Last week I encouraged you to get a flu shot. I know many people don't get this important vaccination because of the pain associated with those nasty needles. However, 35-50 million people in the United States get the flu every year. More than 20,000 people die from complications associated with getting the flu. Elderly people are more likely to be very sick from the flu and they should get a flu shot (refer to a previous article on this subject).
The future maybe be different. The ASM News (American Society for Microbiology's news magazine) recently mentioned a new flu vaccine is on the horizon. This new vaccination involves the use of a nasal spray rather than a needle and syringe. The nasal spray is squirted up each nostril two times. The spray contains three different influenza viruses that are alive but unable to cause disease in humans. The viruses will multiply for a time in the nose until the person's immune system eliminates the viruses. By eliminating the viruses you then have protection from the influenza viruses that can cause you to get really ill.
Last year 92 healthy adults were given the influenza nasal spray and then a couple of weeks later infected with flu-causing influenza viruses. Only 14 (15%) of those 92 people got the flu. The flu vaccination we use now is not much better and besides it hurts a lot more.
Researchers also tested this influenza nasal spray in 1,070 children. The children were not infected with the flu-causing influenza viruses as in the study above. However, during the flu season (the winter months in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres) only one per cent of the children got the flu. A control group of 532 children received nasal spray without the influenza virus in it at the same time. Eighteen per cent of that group got the flu.
These studies are very promising. Next year, a company (Aviron) that plans on licensing this vaccine with the Food and Drug Administration, is going to conduct another study using a large number of healthy adults. They hope to show that the new nasal spray flu vaccine can protect people from the flu. I hope so too. Maybe in a couple of years just two squirts
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