Health NZ says an influenza vaccine is recommended for everyone over six months old, every year. It's free for some groups, including people aged 65 years and over, people with chronic health conditions and people who are pregnant. Photo: CDC
A clinician and vaccination expert is calling on everyone to do the responsible thing and get their flu jab, to help their own health and the rest of the community.
Flu season is approaching, and the national flu immunisation programme starts on 1 April.
Immunisation Advisory Centre medical adviser Dr Edwin Reynolds told Checkpoint the flu can be a serious illness, and should not be dismissed as just another everyday niggle.
It was safest for people to avoid the risks it comes with, by getting vaccinated. Vaccination also helps relieves strain on the medical system, which is often heavily burdened during winter flu season.
"In my experience as a GP, I find you can really tell the difference for people with those sorts of upper respiratory infections, walking in the door - you can see the difference between what seems to be just a cold, versus flu, - and not just that, it's the severity, it really affects their functioning ability."
Dr Edwin Reynolds says everyone should get the flu vaccine this year. Photo: Supplied
The Northern Hemisphere was hit by an especially hard flu season during their winter, which means health authorities are preparing for that to potentially happen here too. The different parts of the world frequently "mirror" or follow each other's seasonal experiences when it comes to contagious diseases, Reynolds said.
"I'm expecting as a GP to see people rolling into the offices with their respiratory illness. But it would be nice to just see them with less of an illness than the severity that is caused by things like flu."
What are the different types of flu vaccine?
The flu is spread by viruses that mutate and change over time, so researchers are continually updating the vaccines to target the most recent strains of flu and the different strains in different areas.
World-wide, there are hundreds of different flu vaccines, and each has slightly different technology for combating the virus, Reynolds said.
"The big picture is trying to get vaccines into arms, and vaccines in arms means people are a lot more protected," so the "small details" of each influenza vaccine were less important than ensuring you get one of them, he said.
At the moment New Zealand had five different vaccines, though only one version is publicly funded: "It's funded for people who are at high risk of flu."
The other versions of the vaccine in New Zealand are similar "standard vaccines", but are more likely to be available to those who are not high risk, he said. For example, "your employers are probably busy trying to get at the moment, into their fridges."
"They've still got the same formulations - there's two [influenza] A strains, and two B strains that you're protected against, they were all basically worked out some weeks ago by the WHO [World Health Organisation], as to which strains should go into those vaccines [for New Zealand]."
Each year's flu vaccines are tailored to the strains of influenza most likely to be circulating in the community that year. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Sometimes different vaccine types are advertised as 'advanced', but a better description is that "they are actually more nuanced for different groups," Reynolds said.
"So for example, [one is for people aged] 65 and above - that's for people who their immune systems aren't working like they used to", and contains an additional agent that enhances their immune response.
He said the most important thing was for people who are in groups that are more at risk if they do catch the flu to get vaccinated this year.
That includes young children, people who are pregnant, people aged 65 years and older, people with long-term diseases such as cardiovascular or respiratory diseases, people with mental health conditions and people with compromised immune systems, and more: "They're all funded", he said.
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