From August 25, especially early this year, seasonal flu vaccines are available for 2014/2015, the Polish National Influenza Program told PAP. 500 are offered. doses of this preparation.
This is the first such situation in several years. Vaccination usually started in the second or third week of September. This year, the procedures for updating the characteristics of medicinal products have changed, which has facilitated and accelerated the introduction of these vaccines to our market.
According to the National Program for Combating Influenza, 500 are already available in wholesalers in the country. doses of seasonal flu vaccines. Soon they will be offered in pharmacies, clinics and vaccination centers.
Specialists have been urging people to vaccinate against influenza for years. Head of the National Influenza Center, prof. Lidia Brydak argues that the vaccine provides the best protection against seasonal flu. Poles, however, are reluctant to vaccinate. In the 2013/2014 season, only 3,8 percent were vaccinated. Poles, while in other countries there is a ten times greater percentage of the vaccinated population.
Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Health Education of the Halina Osińska Foundation, prof. Adam Antczak claims that Poles still believe that flu is not a serious disease. He warns that this is not true. “Thanks to vaccination, we can avoid serious and life-threatening complications from influenza. That is why it is worth thinking about vaccination today, ”he adds.
According to the specialist, it is comforting that in the past flu season, for the first time since 2009, the number of Poles vaccinating against influenza stopped dropping. In the 2012/2013 season, 3,8 percent were vaccinated. people, the same as the year before, although almost two times less than in the 2008/2009 season, when 6,8 percent decided to vaccinate against influenza. Poles.
Even Polish doctors are reluctant to vaccinate against influenza. In the season 2013/2014, despite the campaign of the National Program for Combating Influenza, only 6% of them decided to do so. doctors. Much more, more than 50 percent. medical workers were vaccinated in centers that promoted influenza vaccination in themselves as part of OPZG.
Prof. Antczak believes that doctors and nurses should get vaccinated first. “If they do not do it, it is unethical, because by not vaccinating, they endanger themselves, their relatives and patients,” he emphasized in April at the Flu Meeting 2014 conference in Warsaw.
Flu vaccines have to be changed every year because of the high variability of the flu virus. Each year they are adapted to the strains of microorganisms that will spread around the world in the coming months. The World Health Organization (WHO) updates its recommendations on the antigenic composition of influenza vaccines twice a year (in February for the Northern Hemisphere and in September for the Southern Hemisphere).
According to the data of the National Institute of Public Health – National Institute of Hygiene, the number of cases and suspected cases of influenza in the 2013/2014 season amounted to almost 2 million cases, over 7 thousand were recorded. hospitalizations and 9 deaths. (PAP)