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Ordinary flu jab may protect against H1N1 - study
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 07 - 10 - 2009


Mexican researchers say they
have some evidence that the ordinary seasonal flu vaccine may
offer some protection against the new pandemic H1N1 swine flu, contrary to other studies, Reuters reported.
They found that people who had been vaccinated against
seasonal flu were far less likely to be sick or to die from
H1N1 than people who had not been immunized against seasonal
flu.
"These results are to be considered cautiously and in
no way indicate that seasonal vaccine should replace
vaccination against pandemic influenza A/H1N1
2009," Lourdes Garcia-Garcia and colleagues at the National
Institute of Public Health in Cuernavaca wrote in the British
Medical Journal.
But they said the findings might offer some good news for
people who have been vaccinated against seasonal flu,
especially as governments are just beginning to distribute
newly made swine flu vaccines.
The new H1N1 swine flu virus is a very distant cousin of
the H1N1 seasonal flu virus, which is included in the mixture
provided every year in the seasonal flu vaccine.
Most studies have shown the annual vaccine provides little
or no protection against H1N1, likely because it is very
different.
One study in Canada suggested that in fact people who got
seasonal flu vaccines may be more likely to become infected
with H1N1, although the World Health Organization and the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention both expressed
doubts about the findings.
Garcia's team studied 60 patients with confirmed swine flu
and 180 similar people with other diseases being treated in the
Mexico City area.
The Mexican government distributes seasonal flu vaccine.
Only eight people who had been vaccinated against seasonal
flu were among the swine flu cases, the researchers reported.
They found that 29 percent of unvaccinated people in the study
became infected with H1N1, versus 13 percent of vaccinated
people.
None of the vaccinated people died, but 35 percent of swine
flu patients who died had not been vaccinated against seasonal
flu, they found.
"Seasonal vaccination might protect against the most severe
forms of the disease," the researchers wrote.
Menno de Jong of the University of Amsterdam and Rogier
Sanders of Cornell University in New York said the study shows
some protection but said what the world really needs is a
universal flu vaccine that protects people against all
strains.
Currently, the seasonal vaccine must be formulated every
year because influenza viruses mutate, and new strains, such as
the H1N1 swine flu, require a completely new vaccine. The new
H1N1 vaccine took five months to formulate and manufacture.


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