Help yourself. Get shot. Although lots of good stuff for flu is on the horizon, today's options aren't so bleak, either. Existing flu shots are 70 percent to 90 percent effective at preventing flu in healthy young people, and upwards of 50 percent effective in the elderly, who are more vulnerable to flu's deadly complications. (And even if the vaccines don't prevent the flu, they do tend to reduce symptoms and serious complications). Almost anybody can benefit from flu shots, excepting those who are allergic to eggs, where the virus is grown. Experts particularly recommend the shots for people:

		aged 65 and older
		with chronic diseases affecting the heart, lung or kidneys
		with diabetes, immunosuppression, or severe anemia
		people in contact with the above folks, like doctors, nurses and nursing-home staff

Virologist Virginia Hinshaw and staff writer Dave Tenenbaum take it in the shoulder. © 1994, University of Wisconsin-Madison Office of News and Public Affairs. Virginia Hinshaw photo by Jeff Miller. Other photos by Dave's other hand.

Despite its advantages, less than 60 percent of the high-risk population gets the flu shot each year. Experience is no excuse Don't think you can evade the needle just because you got a jab last year. First of all, the immunity tends to fade over time. And if you've stayed awake this long, you know new strains of flu constantly appear, compelling the vaccine concoctors to monitor the flu's victims. The surveillance is particularly important in China, where the last two pandemic flus originated, presumably because people live in close proximity to farm animals. What if the worst occurs? Let's say the Hong Kong bird flu had been transmissible to people. What would have prevented a rerun of the 1918 epidemic? Improved surveillance -- as was demonstrated in this case -- a global warning system, and a lot of vaccine. "The current U.S. plan in the event of a pandemic is to vaccinate virtually the entire population," says Centers for Disease Control epidemiologist Nancy Arden. Would that work? Currently, U.S. vaccine manufacturers produce 75 million doses of a vaccine containing three viral strains. They start in early spring, using predictions about what will be happening, flu-wise, in the fall. Producing a single-strain vaccine could be quicker, but there are plenty of unknowns. One concerns the amount of warning. The soaring rate of international travel could bring the pandemic to our shores more quickly than in the past. But the 1918 epidemic predated jet travel, and Arden notes that the 1957 and 1968 flus "spread very quickly without the level of jet travel we have today." How would the public respond to a call for widespread vaccination? That could depend on how people remember the 1976 "swine flu" episode. In that year, a pig flu among some soldiers spurred a nationwide vaccination program. However, the epidemic never materialized because the virus did not spread easily, and many people considered the campaign a false alarm. Furthermore, the swine flu vaccine was implicated in causing a few cases of a severe nerve disorder called Guillain Barre syndrome. We'd be in a better position to assess the danger of a new flu if we knew why the 1918 flu was so deadly. Scientists have begun analyzing viral fragments from one victim of the epidemic, and there's a plan to dig up seven corpses frozen stiff on an island in the North Atlantic. In the meantime, we'll have to count on the medical sleuths who scour the globe looking for new flus and new victims. In viral disease, prevention is everything. As Hinshaw notes, "you have to be really thorough -- it makes good sense to find these new strains." Read Achin' Al's flu bibliography.

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