Doctors recommend certain type of flu shot

It is still summer, but doctors said it’s time to start getting flu shots.

This year, they are recommending a certain type of flu shot.

It’s called a quadrivalent shot and it protects against four strains of the flu.

“We encourage everyone over six months to get a flu shot and you have to do it every year because the viruses change every year,” Bill Letson, medical officer at the El Paso County Public Health Department, said.

Last year, many people complained that they got sick despite getting a flu shot. But medical experts said it’s likely because they caught a strain that wasn’t protected by the vaccine.

“We study the trends of what’s circulating and what is likely to come here and that’s how we determine what goes into the vaccine,” Letson said.

This year, Letson said there is a strain sickening hundreds of people in Australia and it is likely coming here.

But in order to protect against it, people have to ask for the shot that covers four strains.

“It would be worth it to get the quadrivalent shot,” Letson said.

Joye Dixon said she always gets a flu shot because it’s required by her employers. Even though she’s gotten sick with the flu twice despite getting the shot, she said it’s still important to get vaccinated.

“It makes enough sense for me to get it to not spread it in a way that could potentially send someone to the hospital,” Dixon said.

Nurse Laura London agreed.

“It’s a community health risk. If people aren’t given a flu shot, it can spread like an epidemic and cause a breakdown in work forces, schools and communities,” London said. “It’s your duty to keep yourself and everyone else around you healthy.”

Doctors said to get flu shots soon because they take two weeks to become effective.

They are effective for up to a year.