TORONTO — Canadians who got a flu shot this year may have cut in
half their risk of getting sick enough from flu to require
medical care, new data suggests. “It seems that this vaccine is
cutting your risk of influenza in half, which ... is still
important protection, especially if you’re a high-risk person,”
said Dr. Danuta Skowronski, a flu expert with the British
Columbia Centre for Disease Control who oversees the
surveillance network from which the data was drawn. Skowronski
said an important message from the data relates to the care of
people who are at high risk of the complications of influenza if
they become infected. Doctors caring for such patients shouldn’t
assume that because they got vaccinated they won’t contract
influenza this winter, she said. For these people, use of
antiviral drugs may be warranted if they become ill. The mid-
season flu vaccine effectiveness estimate is drawn from a
surveillance network of a couple of hundred family doctors and
community physicians in the country’s five mos