Our office finds that each year brings a new challenge in the ordering of flu shots. The good news for this year is that we are supposed to get plenty of flu shots in the next few weeks! The interesting part this year is that there are two different types of flu shots available this year.
Traditionally the flu vaccine has protected against 3 strains of the flu. The strains change yearly based on what the experts predict will go around the community. 2 strains of influenza A and one strain of B are included. If you are one of the unlucky people who still gets the flu even though you have had the shot it may be because you got a strain that wasn't included in the vaccine. To help with this problem the vaccine manufacturing companies have developed a quadrivalent vaccine that includes two A strains and two B strains.
What has resulted this year is that some manufacturing companies have made quadrivalent vaccine (4 strains) some have made trivalent vaccine (3 strains) and some companies have made both. We are limited to what brands we can use because not all brands are for use in children and in fact there is only 1 brand for use in kids under age 3. So our choices are limited.
It looks like this year we are going to have mostly trivalent available. We are on the waiting list for quadrivalent but are not likely to get any. Of interest, the Flumist only made quadrivalent this year. So for injection we will only have trivalent and for inhaled we will only have quadrivalent.
I suspect that next year no one will make trivalent any more so there will be plenty of quadrivalent available.
As always if you have questions give us a call. We will announce on Facebook when our flu vaccines are available.
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