Community urged to get their flu vaccines

Vaccine company Sanofi Pasteur held an online media briefing on 9 June to raise awareness about the importance of getting vaccinated against influenza.

This year, the event was themed ‘Not to be taken lightly’, and was led by Dr Thinus Marais who is the medical head for Sanofi Pasteur Africa and Internationally Funded Public Markets.

The event, which was a continuation from last year’s event, focused on the dangers of the acute respiratory illness caused by influenza types A, B and C.

Marais said influenza affected five to 10 per cent of adults and 20 to 30 per cent of children worldwide. Just like coronavirus, it could lead to hospitalisation or death among people who were a higher risk.

“High risk people included pregnant women, children five years old and younger, elderly patients, 65 years old and above, as well as individuals with underlying diseases. What was added to the group from a vaccination perspective, not because of their risk but because of their positioning within an infectious disease process, is healthcare workers. We see about five million cases of influenza per year with 650 000 annual global deaths,” he added.

Marais stressed the importance of getting vaccinated, saying that it reduced the number of medical visits and associated costs by 40 to 60 per cent, an important point to be kept in mind in considering the pandemic.

“With a healthcare system that is already stretched, if you have an intervention that is able to reduce the number of visits of patients to a healthcare system, that comes as a huge relief.

“There is no influenza season that is the same, it is very hard to predict how the virus will behave.

“In South Africa specifically, there are 47 000 cases annually, and about

50 per cent of these cases are severe and require hospitalisation and we see 11 800 South Africans die every year because of this flu.”

He concluded that people should get vaccinated during this Covid-19 pandemic, especially, because this would relieve hospitals and prevent co-infection of both influenza and coronavirus.

Details: Sanofi Pasteur 011 256 3700.

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