Who should get the flu vaccination?
• Persons over age 65. • Children and teenagers receiving chronic aspirin therapy. • Nursing home residents. • Persons with chronic lung or heart disease, diabetes or cancer. • Health care workers. • HIV patients should receive vaccine, though it is less effective if disease is severe. • For 2000 – 2001, all persons 50-64 years old have been added to the primary target group. Q: What are the contraindications of the vaccination? • Persons hypersensitive to chicken eggs or other components of the vaccine. • Persons with an acute febrile illness. • Persons with low platelet count, thrombocytopenia. Coumadin or Steroid therapy is not a contraindication. Q: What are the side effects of the vaccine? • Infrequent like tenderness, redness due to formalin component, or induration at the site of injection. • Rarely myalgia or fever. • Some side effects associated with early impure vaccine are no more a concern like Guillain-Barre´ Syndrome. Some antiviral medicines have been available for a lon
