Since the beginning of January, we have been extremely busy with flu vaccination. Vaccine shortages elsewhere have meant that our drop-in service has been running at full stretch, with patients attending from all over the UK. Many of them are people who belong to the traditional NHS high-risk groups. We’ve also seen large numbers of pregnant women. There have been many small children, as well as people from all walks of life who simply wish to avoid flu this winter. We’ve been fortunate to have enough flu vaccine available to look after everyone who wants to use the service.
Unlike most other practices, we aim to carry more vaccine stock each year than we expect to use. We hate running out! During the early part of the autumn, many of the companies and organisations that we visit around the country, carrying out workplace flu vaccination, vaccinated fewer members of staff than in previous years. The result is that we now have more vaccine stock available.
Is it still worth being vaccinated? The usual vaccination season typically runs from September to December, and each year it is exceptional for us to vaccinate anyone after Christmas. However the vaccination season is not the same as the peak time for actually acquiring flu. Most flu victims become ill between Christmas and Easter, so even allowing for the fact that full immunity may take up to 2 weeks to develop, it may still be well worthwhile to have the vaccine.
Unfortunately, it seems likely that the number of cases of people with flu complications may continue to rise over the coming weeks. There may well be alarming news coverage of this is. Flu vaccination is a simple, effective and low-cost option, and we will carry on doing our best to make it easily available to anyone who would like to have it. This has been our exact approach for the past 16 years!