ST. LOUIS (AP) — Doctors in the St. Louis area are hopeful that a change to the flu vaccine will minimize outbreaks this winter.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that more than 54,000 Missourians were diagnosed with flu last season, the most since 2003. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says blame is traced to a mismatched vaccine that did not protect against most of the virus strains that made people sick.
So this year, scientists are targeting the most common strain of the virus that circulated last season. The new vaccine will still contain the deactivated 2009 H1N1 virus plus a new influenza B strain and a new H3N2 strain — the one thought to cause the most illnesses last season.
