Winter flu vaccination campaign 2014-15

[Janet]

Canarian Sanidad minister Brigida Mendoza has initiated the Canaries' annual winter flu vaccination campaign for 2014-2015. The health minister stressed that anyone at risk from flu complications should see their doctor or call 012 as soon as possible after 15 October to arrange a vaccination appointment when supplies will be available. These groups are the elderly, the chronically ill, those with respiratory conditions, pregnant women, the morbidly obese, and health workers themselves.

Some 225,000 doses are present, with an additional 12,00 doses with adjuvant (an addition to the vaccine to increase the immune system's response), distributed throughout the Canaries. Sanidad says that flu vaccinations can reduce mortality by 50%; the Sociedad Española de Geriatría y Gerontología (SEGG) says that in 2010-11 some 1,900 people died throughout Spain as a result of flu, 90% of them over 70, and 85% of whom had not been vaccinated. A lot of rubbish is talked about vaccination, but these figures, as so many others, speak for themselves. Anyone who feels at risk should speak to their doctor now to arrange an appointment from 15 October. JA