Flu jab in Norway has limited effect: study
NTB/The Local - [email protected]
Published: 7 Nov, 2014 CET.
Updated: Fri 7 Nov 2014 10:09 CET
Norway's flu vaccine only has a small effect on curing flu symptoms in healthy adults, said a study on Friday.
If you're a healthy and wholesome adult, you don't need a flu jab. This was the conclusion from the Cochrane Collaboration, a study that examined 90 flu jab studies in the field, reported Forskning.no.
According to the research, per 71 people vaccinated, only one case of the flu was avoided. The vaccination did not show any effect on the number of days away from work or hospital admissions. Allan Randrup Thomsen, professor of virology at the Department of International Health at the University of Copenhagen, said: “This is a well-known observation.” Chief physician Tyra Krause from the State Serum Institute in Denmark is also not surprised. “It is not surprising, because young and healthy people don't have a high risk of a serious flu. That is why we recommend the vaccine only to the risk groups,” said Krause. The key risk groups are old people aged 65 and above, pregnant women, the chronically ill, and overweight people. These four groups have the greatest risk of getting serious complications linked to the flu, some of which could be fatal. Thomsen said: “With healthy people, one wants to measure how many days the person is absent from work, while the effect within the risk groups is measured by deaths and the number of hospital admissions. The vaccine does remove the worst symptoms of the infection, and this makes it more effective for elderlies than for young people.”
Comments
See Also
If you're a healthy and wholesome adult, you don't need a flu jab. This was the conclusion from the Cochrane Collaboration, a study that examined 90 flu jab studies in the field, reported Forskning.no.
According to the research, per 71 people vaccinated, only one case of the flu was avoided. The vaccination did not show any effect on the number of days away from work or hospital admissions.
Allan Randrup Thomsen, professor of virology at the Department of International Health at the University of Copenhagen, said: “This is a well-known observation.”
Chief physician Tyra Krause from the State Serum Institute in Denmark is also not surprised.
“It is not surprising, because young and healthy people don't have a high risk of a serious flu. That is why we recommend the vaccine only to the risk groups,” said Krause.
The key risk groups are old people aged 65 and above, pregnant women, the chronically ill, and overweight people.
These four groups have the greatest risk of getting serious complications linked to the flu, some of which could be fatal.
Thomsen said: “With healthy people, one wants to measure how many days the person is absent from work, while the effect within the risk groups is measured by deaths and the number of hospital admissions. The vaccine does remove the worst symptoms of the infection, and this makes it more effective for elderlies than for young people.”
Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.
Please log in here to leave a comment.