Among nursing home residents, vaccination reduces the risk of being hospitalized by around 50 percent, the risk of contracting pneumonia by about 60 percent and the risk of death between 75 and 80 percent. Flu vaccinations are very safe. Less than one out of three people who receive a flu shot have some soreness at the vaccination site, and about 5 to 10 percent may experience mild symptoms such as headache or low-grade fever for about a day after receiving their flu shot. These side effects are most likely to occur in children who have never been exposed to the flu virus. You cannot get the flu from a flu shot.
Some older people remember earlier flu vaccines that did produce unpleasant side effects.
These vaccines were made during the 1940s to the mid-1960s and were not as pure as modern flu vaccines. Impurities caused most of the side effects that mimicked flu symptoms such as fever, headache, muscle aches and fatigue. Therefore, people believed the vaccine had given them a case of the flu. The truth is, flu vaccine produced in the U.S. has never been capable of causing a case of influenza. Prior to last flu season, the Ohio Department of Health bought 230,000 doses of flu vaccine to be distributed by local health departments and public health clinics.