Quebec doctor talks flu shot value, upcoming government report
Dr. Gaston De Serres speaks about province's report on effectiveness of flu vaccine
As flu season sets in, the Quebec government will offer about two million flu vaccines across the province, but now the health ministry is questioning the benefits of the program.
Last week, Dr. Horacio Arruda, the Quebec director of public health, published an editorial citing concerns about how successful the vaccine is for Quebecers who are not elderly or chronically ill.
Quebec's public health institute, the Institut national de santé publique du Québec, is now tasked with finding out how effective the flu vaccine is and who it actually protects in the long term.
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Dr. Gaston De Serres, a medical epidemiologist at the institute who is heading the team looking into the report, spoke with CBC Montreal's Homerun about the vaccination program in Quebec.
The findings of the study are due in 2017.
On why the vaccine may be more effective some years than others
"The vaccine is changed annually to make sure that we have in the vaccine the strains of the influenza viruses that are most likely to circulate during the winter season.
Sometimes the experts at the World Health Organization are doing a good guess about what will happen in the winter time. Sometimes the virus changes during the summertime and we have a season where the vaccine is not well matched to the circulating viruses."
On how it feels to be an epidemiologist questioning the flu shot
"I think most people looking at this variability in protection agree that people at high risk of complications of influenza, like elderly people or people with chronic conditions, there is no doubt that receiving the vaccine annually is the best option.
For people who are young and healthy, and for which the benefit of the vaccine is smaller — you know, you're 20 and you receive the vaccine — it may prevent a disease that will cause you two days in bed and seven to 10 days of coughing. It's certainly not the same severity of disease."
On what the report will recommend
"Again, we don't think that by that time we will have solved the issue of effective repeat vaccination but clearly, again, I don't think the recommendations for elderly and people with chronic conditions will change with this report.
It's really about optimizing the program. Should there be other groups that should be included? Should there be less people outside of these two groups that should be included? That's what will be discussed."
On the possibility of not advising healthy, young people to be vaccinated
"I don't know.
Sometimes, again, we saw an increased protection in people who received the annual vaccination. It's not a single phenomenon. There are several scientific theories which may explain that and we don't know which is right.
But I think to say at this time that it is possible in the near future that we would say to healthy people 'don't get the vaccine' — I don't know. I think it's premature to talk about that."