NPR: Flu Season Brings Stronger Vaccines And Revised Advice
Photo by Aaron M. Sprecher/AP Images for National Council on Aging and Sanofi Pasteur
The symptoms of the flu are familiar: fever, chills, cough, congestion, feeling very, very tired. If you’re a healthy adult under 65, you’ll most likely recover in a week or two.
But for those older than 65, things can get worse fast, saysDr. H. Keipp Talbot, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University.
“It’s not [just] a cold, it’s not the chills, it’s not a runny nose,” she says. “For many people it can be hospitalization, pneumonia, worsening heart failure.”Flucomplications like these hospitalize more than 200,000 older adults every year, and thousands die.
“As we age, so does our immune system,” says Talbot. On top of that, age-related health problems increase susceptibility. These may include “high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease,” Talbot says. “And so we’re at a much greater risk of having hospitalizations or pneumonia if we develop influenza as we age.”
A new supersize vaccine could lower that risk.
Read more at NPR.org.
