Even vaccinated people are being infected intensively this season; however, according to statistics from other countries as well as our own observations, vaccinated individuals tend to experience a milder course of the illness, while the unvaccinated suffer particularly severely - with 5–7 days of high, persistent fever and often complications. Please do not follow the campaign claiming that the vaccine has “failed” this year, infectious disease specialist Maia Butsashvili writes on social media.

According to her, due to mutations, some even predicted a pandemic course of influenza this year.

“There has been a lot of discussion about this season’s influenza strain. Information is spreading that the vaccine ‘did not work’ against this subtype. Let me remind you that this year the dominant strain is H3N2 subclade K (and not ‘swine flu,’ as many call it, which is H1N1. That subtype is also circulating now, but this year the emphasis is on H3N2).

In short, focusing on these subtypes might not be so important. The key point is that this year the influenza virus mutated after the vaccine had already been developed (as a reminder, each year the vaccine is created based on the subtypes expected to circulate during the season). As a result, its effectiveness is lower than in other seasons. This has somewhat increased skepticism toward the vaccine, which has always existed anyway.

In reality, this year the flu vaccine is even more important, because the new subtype of the virus has partially ‘escaped’ the immune response, and therefore even the protection that some people had against H3N2 works less effectively. Because of this mutation, some even predicted a pandemic course of influenza this year. Hopefully, this will no longer be a threat.

During this season, vaccinated people are also becoming infected quite intensively; however, according to international statistics and what we observe locally, vaccinated individuals have a comparatively milder illness, while the unvaccinated experience a particularly severe course - 5–7 days of high, persistent fever and frequent complications. Hospitalization rates are much lower among the vaccinated.

Therefore, please do not follow the campaign claiming that the vaccine has ‘failed’ this year and that vaccination was pointless. I repeat once again: on the contrary, this year it was even more important. So for those who have not yet been vaccinated, it still makes sense,” Butsashvili writes.