Keep in touch with your local health department to find out if and when H1N1 vaccines will be available, and whether you qualify to receive one.

A swine flu vaccine is planned, but it's too soon to tell when it will be ready.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced approval of a vaccine for the upcoming flu season. But it’s important to note this will not protect you from the pandemic H1N1 flu (commonly referred to as swine flu). As for the swine flu vaccine, government agencies are meeting Thursday to discuss moving forward with vaccine plans for the H1N1 virus.

THE DETAILS: Each year, researchers from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and other institutions examine seasonal flu virus strains from around the world and try to pick the three most likely to cause the most illness. The closer the match between the circulating virus strains and the strains used to create the vaccine, the better the protection against the disease. That process is proceeding as usual, according to the FDA, so a vaccine for the “regular” seasonal flu is likely to be available in September. Seasonal flu can cause hospitalization and death, especially among older people, children, and people with serious medical conditions. So the seasonal flu vaccine should remain on everyone’s to-do list this fall, same as every year. The new wrinkle this year, of course, is the H1N1 virus, which is expected to make a resurgence in the U.S. in the fall. The seasonal flu vaccine won’t protect against it, and creation of an H1N1 vaccine is still in the early stages.

WHAT IT MEANS: We need to take both flu strains seriously. H1N1 has been stealing a lot of headlines this year, but so far its effects been mild, even milder than seasonal flu. On the other hand, no one knows what properties it may have when it returns to the U.S. after mixing with other flu strains.