What would a flu pandemic look like in 2018?

[AbsentmindedWoman]

Planning on taking my flu jab soon after my gp practice has it available. Obviously, it's not foolproof and we keep hearing the world is due a flu pandemic.

What would this look like in 2018? Say, if we had a strain on a par with the 1918 Spanish flu?

I guess it would spread more rapidly because of international travel. But we do have much more sophisticated healthcare available to us compared to 100 years ago - how would a system like the NHS, in a rich country, cope?

I feel I don't know quite enough about the actual mechanics of flu, once it goes into territory where it becomes very serious and possibly fatal in people who are not vulnerable due to age or compromised immune systems.

I had flu for the first time last year, I have never looked or felt so sick. I couldn't sleep, couldn't breath or eat. It took a week to return to near function and a month to get over it.

Do the military receive flu jabs routinely?

Because they would be drafted in to be the drivers for vital supplies (food, fuel, hospital supplies). It'ud be less severe, but longer lasting, than the way things fell over in the supply chain during the petrol tanker drivers strike of 2000.

But of course other services wouid be impacted because of staff absences (directly ill or need to care)

The immunisation children could make a big difference to spread, because they are classed as 'superspreaders' for a reason. I'm not sure what the %age uptake of those eligible was, and don't think it was particularly high - partly (judging from comments I read at the time) because some people see the risk to their child in having the immunisation as greater than the risk to their famines if there is a serious outbreak.

Perception of risk might change rapidly if there is a major outbreak.. by which time it may be too late for them (as they estimate it can take 2 weeks from immunisation to full immune response).

Anyone seen when it becomes available this year?

HelenaDove doesn’t that say the one for the over 75s is the most effective and the one for everyone else is ineffective? Or have I read it wrong?

We’d need to unravel twenty years of bollocks about fifty pound note tests and “if you could do the school run/crawl into work/open your eyes then it definitely wasn’t flu” and start an advertising campaign saying “if you feel bloody awful but you can get out of bed and get to work/the supermarket/school then for god sake don’t! because it may well be flu and you should be in quarantine”

Yes, agree that the flu hits different people with varying degrees of harshness. Not everyone with flu will feel like death warmed up - they're the lucky ones!

The new trivalent is more effective in the over 65s. For some reason, possibly due to reduced immunity, the quadravalent which is being offered to everyone else doesn’t seem to work very well in the over 65s.

If you’re under 65 then the quadravalent is likely to offer better protection.

The way I read it, the over-65s jab has different adjuvants to enhance response, but only 3 strains.

The under-65s jab has the adjuvants as before and four strains.

Not sure what's in the sniff - 3 or 4?

Any HCPs able to shed any light on this?

Jab is available from start of October, according to my GP. Am I right in thinking that the sniff rolls out a bit later, because it sheds, and so it's desirable to get as many if the vulnerable jabbed as possible before DC breathe on them?