Flu risk may be linked to when you were born
Story highlights People born before and after 1968 have different risks for certain flu infections, a study suggests "There's actually this kind of blatant protection that we're all carrying around," one expert says Though the new finding is striking, experts still recommend getting your flu shot CNN — Flu season has arrived, and many people are bracing themselves for the sneezes, sniffles and sick days that lurk around the corner. “From our first childhood experience of being infected with influenza A, our body remembers a protective immune response to employ … and that’s kind of a surprise,” he said, adding that even though the study sheds new light on flu virus immunity, it doesn’t negate the importance of getting the flu vaccine. That’s something we didn’t know before.” Preparing for a pandemic H5N1 and H7N9 are zoonotic influenza viruses with pandemic potential, and each of them represents a global public health challenge, said Dr. Richard Stein, a research scientist at New York University School of Medicine and adjunct assistant professor at City University of New York, who was not involved in the new study. “This is an intriguing and elegant epidemiological study, which sheds new light on the circulation history of flu viruses in humans and its consequences for population-level immunity,” said Cécile Viboud, a senior scientist at the National Institutes of Health’s Fogarty International Center and a co-author of the editorial.
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