Influenza Vaccine 2018: When to Go For the Shot

With flu season just coming up, many people will be headed to their doctors and other healthcare facilities to get the vaccine they hope will keep them safe from the flu virus. With the influenza vaccine, you not only protect yourself from the illness, but it also ensures that those around you who may be more vulnerable will avoid having you transmit it to them. This is especially important concerning babies and the elderly.

As is always the case with every vaccine, the larger the number of people vaccinated within any community, the less likely the event of a disease outbreak becomes.

The vaccine is free for those who are at risk

Going for the flu shot is a preventive measure anyone can opt for if they want to stay safe from the illness, however, the vaccine is usually administered for free to those who are at risk. These include:

• People above the age of 65 years
• Pregnant women at any stage of pregnancy
• Children aged six months and over who may have compromised immunity due to previous disease attacks.

In addition to the above categories of people, it is also common for the government to give the vaccine to children between the ages of six months and five years as a precautionary measure, even though they may not necessarily have weakened or compromised immune systems.

When to get the shot

It is not always easy to determine the ideal time for you to go for the shot, and this is simply because the peak flu period keeps changing every year. Most of the time, the peak flu period falls between July and August, so this may be a good time to go for the shot, but there are certain years when it begins in May and peaks in early September. It is important to get the jab at just about the right time since its effectiveness will begin to diminish after about four months.

However, you don’t have to worry about the timing as the government keeps track of this, and will always announce when people can officially start going to get the shot.