Free Flu Shots Help Keep Illness Away

Want to stay healthy this flu season? The answer is simple: get a flu shot.

Even though North Carolina had one of its most deadly flu seasons last year, the threat of the disease was severely minimized across Duke’s campus due to record-high vaccination numbers for Duke community members. About 28,000 employees got a free flu for the 2013-14 season.

As the annual flu season begins next month, faculty and staff can receive a free flu shot from Duke through the spring months to help keep themselves, coworkers and loved ones safe from the flu, which killed just over 100 North Carolina residents last year.

“During flu season, we come in contact with so many students, so it’s important for us to stay healthy,” said Beth Fox, who, as director of the Academic Advising Center, encourages all her staff to get a free vaccination from Duke. “It takes me 10 minutes total to walk into Lilly Library while they’re offering a shot and get back to work.”

At the beginning of every flu season, she takes time during staff meetings to organize a schedule that allows her team to get a shot at locations on East Campus.

“I think it’s one of the greatest things about working at Duke,” said Fox, who hasn’t caught the illness since receiving a flu vaccination in 2001. “It shows the university wants us to stay healthy.”

Along with a free flu vaccination, employees are also encouraged to wash their hands during flu season, which starts as early as October and can last as late as May. The peak of the season typically occurs in January and February.

Carol Epling, director of Employee Occupational Health and Wellness, said employees are better served by getting a vaccination as early in the season as possible since it takes about two weeks for antibodies to develop to form protection against the strain of the virus.

This year's flu vaccine is designed to protect against three main flu strains that research by the Centers for Disease Control indicate will cause the most cases of influenza during the year. Getting vaccinated every year is necessary to protect against new strains.

“The vaccine that we administer is based on dead virus protein and cannot cause an infection,” Epling said. “During flu season, there are a lot of other viruses circulating, so it’s important to remember that if you get sick after a vaccination, it could be the common cold or a respiratory infection.”