HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The holiday season often runs in tandem with the flu season, and a lot of times, there's an uptick in illness. Now might be a good time to go ahead and get this year's flu vaccine.
While flu season is just getting underway and won't peak until later this winter, it's never too early to get your flu vaccine. Dr. Wes Stubblefield with the Alabama Department of Public Health says, "If you look back historically at the past 10 to 20 years, what you'll find in Alabama is that our flu season typically peaks in January. But it's it's been as early as September and sometimes even as late as March."
He adds that even if you think you might be healthy enough that you don't need to get the vaccine, think about the family members you'll be around this holiday season. "What we do know is that, when people gather together, it's more likely to transmit, respiratory infections. Although some individuals, especially healthy individuals, may have, minimal symptoms with some of our respiratory viruses, like flu. Others can be very severely affected."
And if you have children, make sure they're up to date with their with their flu immunization. Pediatrician Dr. Samanger Purcell-Matthew says, "I would say that you need to get the flu vaccine, especially the young kids, because their symptoms can be really, bad to the asthmatic. I usually it's very important that they should get the vaccine because it can make them very sick and hospitalized and make their asthma worse."
The best advice Stubblefield can give is to get the flu vaccine early and, if you get sick, get treatment as soon as possible. "The problem with flu treatment, if it's if it's not started within a couple of days of, of of when you have symptoms, it's generally ineffective. So this is this really requires people to think very quickly when they start having symptoms."
