Efficacy of this year's flu vaccine is on par with previous seasons

We're more than halfway through this year's flu season, and new CDC data find that this year's vaccine has been 45% effective in protecting people and keeping them from visiting the doctor's office for the flu. The effectiveness of flu vaccines in past years has been between 40%-60%. The protection for kids this year was higher: Researchers estimate that the vaccine offered 55% protection against those aged 6 months to 17 years. Researchers were concerned that the seasonal flu vaccine wouldn't be as effective against influenza type B, especially in kids, and the new data found that the vaccine was still about 50% effective against this flu type. At the same time, the flu shot has been largely ineffective against flu type A in youth. Both flu types are considered especially dangerous for kids, but not so much for the elderly. So far, there have been 92 pediatric deaths and 14,000 deaths among adults this flu season.