Feb. 3, 2020
The bottom line: Vaccines are our best protection against disease, but in some situations vaccinated people can still get sick. In the case of influenza, several factors can cause this. Nonetheless, physicians stress vaccines are the best form of protection, shielding many individuals from the disease or at least reducing the severity of symptoms, and preventing hospitalization or death.
Vaccines protect us from preventable diseases. However, why do some vaccinated people get sick anyway? Several factors determine a vaccine’s effectiveness at protecting an individual, physicians say.
While most vaccinations have high rates of effectiveness (even greater than 90% protection), others, like influenza, are less predictable.
“Every year the [flu] virus changes, and scientists in laboratories have to try to figure out what the next strain of influenza will be, make the most educated guess, put those strains into the vaccine – and sometimes it’s not a perfect match,” said Austin internist, pediatrician, and infectious disease specialist David L. Lakey, MD, in a TMA video. “Sometimes the vaccine versus the strains of influenza that are circulating isn’t perfect.”
People with specific medical conditions such as heart disease, chronic lung disease, and cancer have a harder time fighting diseases and are at a higher risk of developing severe complications. Older people are also more susceptible to getting sick.
Some adults experience waning immunity – their immunity built up from childhood vaccines diminishes. That’s why they are strongly urged to keep up with their vaccinations, to give their immunity a boost.
“Patients that are diabetic, patients that have other things that immunocompromise them, individuals that are older, they don’t have as robust a response to the vaccine,” said Dr. Lakey, who serves on TMA’s Council on Science and Public Health, in the video. “By immunizing those individuals, it protects them from having the severe cases.”
People suffering from the flu can experience fever, chills, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headaches, fatigue, and vomiting. If left untreated, some individuals may develop complications like pneumonia, which can be fatal.
But the flu shot can minimize those symptoms if people get sick.
“It’s also really good at preventing people from getting hospitalized, and so they may have a less severe case of influenza, still have the runny nose, fever, [but] may not end up in the hospital with influenza,” Dr. Lakey explained.
He added that if enough people get their shots, society is protected, a situation physicians call community immunity. This phenomenon “can decrease the number of people that are transmitting the virus and decrease the number of individuals that are going to infect me, my family, your family, from that circulating virus.”
By getting your shots you can avoid getting sick altogether, or at least make the illness shorter, more bearable, and less dangerous.
For more than a year TMA has produced a series on vaccine-related topics, including: how people in vaccinated communities can protect each other from disease, how vaccines work, why to vaccinate before and during pregnancy, and addressing the autism myth. TMA has also highlighted contagious diseases that childhood and adult vaccinations can prevent, including measles, chickenpox and shingles, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), and many others. TMA seeks to raise immunization awareness and fight back against false claims that hamper immunizations.
TMA is the largest state medical society in the nation, representing more than 53,000 physician and medical student members. It is located in Austin and has 110 component county medical societies around the state. TMA’s key objective since 1853 is to improve the health of all Texans.
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