4

I've seen various sources (notably the government of Canada) saying it was "unlikely", but how unlikely?

I'm asking because I wonder if prepping against flu pandemics would be a sufficient reason to get the seasonal flu shot (putting its other benefits aside)?

ETA: I just read "There is a chance that seasonal flu shots would confer some protection against the avian flu virus H5N1, which has raised fears of a deadly global outbreak. Researchers vaccinated mice against a common form of the flu and found that although the animals got sick they were less likely to die when infected with the related H5N1." (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-seasonal-flu-shots-help/)

I couldn't find anything about it on the CDC and WHO websites.

|improve this question
  • 1
    Welcome to MedicalSciences.SE! Please take the tour and read the help center. For reasons mentioned in this post and in How to Ask, we require prior research information when asking questions. Please help us to help you and edit your question to provide more information on what you have read on this subject, what made you ask this question, and any problems you are having understanding your research. This helps to provide an answer which will be more helpful. If you found nothing, what did you Google? – Chris Rogers Mar 18 '19 at 6:33
3

Based on the most recent large-scale and high quality Cochrane review on more than 80,000 healthy adults from 52 clinical trials aged 16 to 65 years, including pregnant women, over a single influenza season in North America, South America, and Europe who received vaccination between 1969 and 2009 (1):

71 healthy adults need to be vaccinated to prevent one of them experiencing influenza, and 29 healthy adults need to be vaccinated to prevent one of them experiencing an influenza-like illness (2)

These statistics (i.e., 71 and 29) are called number needed to be vaccinated/treated (NNV or NNT) representing the clinical effectiveness of vaccines (NNV) or medications (NNT). http://www.thennt.com/ is a quite useful source to find out such measures of clinical effectiveness of diagnostic, preventive, or therapeutic medical interventions.

Considering the difference between pandemics and seasonal outbreaks: Basically, the current flu vaccines are based on previously recognized sub-types (e.g., in previous epidemics/pandemics). If the virus of an upcoming epidemic/pandemic has been covered in the vaccine, these likelihoods may be true. However, it should be noticed that it is a bit unlikely for a previously well-recognized and covered sub-type to form a pandemic (i.e. an influenza virus that spreads on a worldwide scale and infects a large proportion of the world population [Wikipedia]), unless by mutating to a new pandemic strain. Also, note that studying vaccines' effectiveness against pandemics (the exact protection rate in populations) by current research equipment, methods and budgets is not feasible.
Also, we should not forget that human kind has only experienced 5 flu pandemics.

|improve this answer
  • 1
    AFAICT, this answers the question "How likely is the seasonal flu shot to protect you from the seasonal flu?" My questoin is "How likely is the seasonal flu shot to protect you from a flu pandemics?" – Mati Roy Mar 24 '19 at 20:28
  • You are right. There are differences between them. I tried to clarify it a bit by editing the answer. Note that seasonal flu shots are to protect against seasonal outbreaks not pandemics. Pandemics are basically caused by mutant (i.e., new) sub-types of virus which the majority of us are not immunized against, these mutants can spread worldwide hence the odds are comprehensively stacked against us ;) – maaniB Mar 25 '19 at 0:46
  • 1
    Thank you for the precision! – Mati Roy Mar 28 '19 at 18:03

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.