BY PAUL SCHINDLER | Flu season in the United States is most common from December until April, which means the time has arrived for the annual flu shot. According to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), that is particularly true for several categories within the general population — those 65 and older, anyone living in a nursing home or other care facility, children under five and those who live with or care for them, pregnant women, people with respiratory or other chronic conditions that make them more susceptible to the flu, all health care workers, and Native Americans.
But everybody should be on the lookout for the flu, which in some years can spread widely throughout the population. According to DOHMH, in every year from 2003 through 2012 (the most recent year for which data was available), deaths from influenza and pneumonia in the city numbered at least 2,245, with mortality topping 3,000 in 2004. Only cancer and heart disease were bigger killers.
Flu shots are administered on an annual basis to respond to the changing nature of virus strains that strike from one season to the next. Injectable vaccines use killed virus, while newer nasal vaccines employ live, but weakened virus unable to invade the respiratory tract. The nasal vaccine is not recommended for children under two, pregnant women, or those with compromised respiratory systems, but a primary care physician or a flu shot clinic nurse should be able to make a specific recommendation on the advisability of each approach. Doctors or nurses should be informed of a serious allergy to eggs, any past serious allergic reaction to a flu shot, any past experience with paralysis from Guillain-Barré Syndrome, or any moderate or severe illness.
Typical side effects, which could last a day or two, involve soreness at the site of an injection, mild fever, and achiness.
DOHMH’s directory of locations where flu shots are available in the five boroughs can be found at: https://goo.gl/aAcDTF.
