Largest flu vaccine rollout in uk history to save thousands of lives
- Select a language for the TTS:
- UK English Female
- UK English Male
- US English Female
- US English Male
- Australian Female
- Australian Male
- Language selected: (auto detect) - EN
Play all audios:
LOW FLU TRANSMISSION DUE TO LOCKDOWN MIGHT MEAN LESS IMMUNITY Comment by Dame Anne Johnson FLU is always unpredictable. It's difficult to predict because the strains that circulate
change from one year to the next. Each year, an international group looks around the world to see which variants have been circulating most recently and it puts those into the vaccine so
that they contain the most up-to-date strains. But if you've got low levels of flu transmission - as we did last year because of all the lockdowns - it is more difficult to make those
predictions. The amount of flu also depends on how much immunity there is in the general population. Because we have had two years without many infections there may be some waning of
immunity, which might mean more flu this year than usual. As restrictions have relaxed, people are in contact with each other more and, despite the vaccine campaign, we are seeing continued
high levels of COVID-19 transmission. It's causing much lower levels of illness but we have still got the challenge of COVID-19, with most recent estimates of one in 85 people currently
infected. The NHS is also currently under a lot of stress with a big backlog of patients and in the winter months we always see additional pressures. It has always been a challenge to get
high flu vaccine uptake, but it was much better last year. We also welcome the extension of eligibility for the flu jab to new groups this year, including more schoolchildren. At the moment
there's little flu activity. But we have to be cautious and see what emerges in the coming months. That will depend on several things including the uptake of flu jabs and continuing
precautions people might be taking for COVID-19 - hand washing, mask wearing, self-isolation when you're ill - which also protect us from flu. All those things will help take pressure
off the NHS, which desperately needs to catch up with the backlog of patients. _Dame Anne Johnson is Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at University College London_