Health Bureau free flu vaccination starts tomorrow

This year’s Health Bureau (SSM) program aimed at providing vaccines against influenza virus to high-risk groups of the resident population will start from tomorrow, the SSM has said in a statement.

According to the same statement and as in other occasions the SSM will provide vaccination service free of charge to all residents, starting with high-risk groups such as children, elderly people, and people with chronic health conditions.

Residents can book online, over the phone or in person at the health care centers in order to book an exact time to have their vaccination done, avoiding in this way long waits.
For the same purpose, the working hours of the health care centers will be extended until 8 p.m. from Monday to Friday.

As informed and for this year, the SSM has ordered a total of 150,000 quadrivalent influenza vaccines to meet the needs of the territory.
Between September 24 and December 7, a total of 105,885 people included in the higher risk groups were successfully vaccinated, corresponding to an increase of 23 percent when compared to last year.

The bureau says that in order to strengthen the community’s immunological barrier, protect the popuation’s health, and make good use of the around 40,000 existing stock of the influenza vaccines, it will now extend the vaccination to all residents over 6 months of age.
Since January this year, the SSM has reported a total of 71 serious cases of flu, which led to the deaths of three people.
According to the SSM’s data, in about 80 percent of the cases, the serious conditions caused by the flu occurred in patients who had not received the seasonal flu vaccine.
The bureau expects that the incidence of flu will peak around February to March 2019 and then from June to August, which is why the bureau is urging residents to have the vaccine now, as the vaccine is only effective two to three weeks after its administration. RM