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MyFoxBoston.com) SPECIAL REPORT -- Many of us have gotten our flu shot, safe in the knowledge that we're protected from the influenza virus. But this year's vaccine is less effective than ever before and the repercussions have been deadly.
The flu fight is in full swing, and it's a battle many of us are losing this season.
Anely Amaya got a call from her daughter Meggui's school recently and asked her to come in immediately.
"She had a fever of 101.5," Anely said of her daughter Meggui.
She scheduled Meggui for a check up right away. Anely said she thought for sure it wasn't the flu.
But now, all three of her girls are sick.
"They still have the symptoms," Anely said.
Anely and her family are among millions who got this season's flu vaccine, only to find out it was only 23 percent effective.
Children, the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions are the most at risk.
Boston saw its first flu death in early January after 23-year-old Luis Cabral, who suffered from Sickle Cell Anemia, died at Boston Medical Center after falling into a coma.
"I was trusting that vaccine, thinking that we were gonna be safe, not getting sick but, to see my kids having the symptoms, it's like oh my God, should I get it again next year?"
The World Health Organization estimates that 3 to 5 million people globally become severely ill with the flu each year. 250,000 to half a million people die each year.
Here in the US, the Centers for Disease Control recorded 61 flu related deaths in children during the 2014-2015 season, with Texas seeing the highest number to date.
With literally millions of lives at stake FOX 25's Crystal Haynes asked cutting edge vaccine researchers here Northeastern University how developers could have got this year's vaccine so wrong.
"What they do is they look at what strains of influenza were around last year to develop the vaccine for this year," said head of the chemical engineering department Dr. Thomas Webster.
Basically, vaccine developers guess, taking a risk with your health.
This year, the strain they used for the vaccine mutated.
"We really, in my opinion, need to rethink our whole way of treating the flu or other viruses," Webster said.
And that's with nanotechnology.
"What we can do in the body is if we were to use this as a vaccine, we could direct, not with really this, but with something more powerful, where these particles go in the body.""
These tiny soldiers attack the flu virus where it lives on a cellular level.
"You can develop these nano-particles to stay long time in your circulation in the body. Once a virus is identified, attach to the virus disrupt it's structure and therefore make that virus useless," Webster said.
Despite the reduced effectiveness of this season's flu vaccine, doctors say they're still going to recommend that their patients get it anyway because some protection is better than no protection at all.
DEFAULT MEDICAL - 640X360 (August 2012)
