Obviously the influenza virus is an important one for scientists to work on limiting its effect. Scientists and medical professionals have focused on making sure the elderly have been given their yearly flu shots (not a vaccine, but as good as can be done with a virus as variable as the flu virus).
A new look at the problem identifies that the elderly, while most often affected, are not the main problem in spreading the epidemics. Children and schools are and should be the target says new research based on computer models.
Computer-modeling studies suggest that immunizing 20 percent of children in a community is more effective at protecting those older than 65 than immunizing 90 percent of the elderly. Another study suggests that immunizing 70 percent of schoolchildren may protect an entire community (including the elderly) from flu. Schools are virus exchange systems, and children are “super-spreaders”—they “shed” more of the virus for longer periods than adults.
Read the whole article. What do you think? Should we have school wide vaccinations? Are there any ethical issues associated with this?
I think that school wide vaccinations are a good thing because the death rates were cut in half for many diseases.
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