A little jab will do you
Pease St Discount Drug Store pharmacist manager Aylin Ektem says the spike in early cases is all the warning people needed to get their flu vaccination.
IF YOU think you’ve heard a few more sniffles than usual in Cairns this year, you’re not wrong.
An early strain of the flu has hit the region hard with confirmed flu cases contracted in January.
Pease St Discount Drug Store pharmacist manager Aylin Ektem said the spike in cases was all the warning people needed to get their flu vaccination.
“The flu is such a rapidly evolving virus so you get vaccinated every year for your flu shot,” she said.
“It won’t cover you against the flu 100 per cent but it will give you protection against the majority of the common flus that are out there.”
Ms Ektem said there were certain groups of people who had a higher risk of contracting the flu.
“People who have type 2 diabetes, people that are asthmatic and people who are more at risk like teachers, doctors and people in the health industry should make sure they get vaccinated,” she said.
“It gives your immune system some memory of those viruses, so if you were to be exposed to those viruses you would get a minimal impact or a shortened duration of that course, so it protects you and gives you a better chance of getting better.”
She said most vaccinations only gave people a small bump on their arm after injection.
“In rare cases, in one in about 2,000,000 there’s an anaphylactic reaction, but that’s in relation to a very specific allergy,” she said.
She said it was important that disadvantaged groups globally had access to vaccinations to create herd immunity.
“A lot of people and children in India don’t have access to these vaccines to prevent these limiting conditions that we can prevent,” she said.
Flu vaccinations at the pharmacies have so far raised $22,000 for Indian patients .
PEOPLE WHO ARE MORE AT RISK LIKE TEACHERS, DOCTORS AND PEOPLE IN THE HEALTH INDUSTRY SHOULD GET VACCINATED PHARMACIST MANAGER AYLIN EKTEM