Getting your player ready...
WASHINGTON — Next year’s flu vaccine is getting a complete overhaul to provide protection against three new and different influenza strains — hopefully better protection than this year’s version.
Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration unanimously backed the new recipe on Thursday, echoing an earlier decision by the World Health Organization. It’s a highly unusual move: Seldom are more than one or two strains swapped out from one year to the next.
The flu season got off to a slow start, but it rocketed in mid-January as some new strains arrived — and the CDC found the vaccine is a good match for only about 40 percent of the virus now spreading in the U.S.
