Riders’ Knox tackling flu bug head on with free vaccination
Backed by personal experience, Jeff Knox Jr. of the Saskatchewan Roughriders hopes to inspire everyone to get a flu shot to protect themselves and their loved ones.
“We’ll take it back to 2007 when my younger brother came down with the flu and was hospitalized for a long time to the point where he almost lost his life,” Knox said. “Going through that, with my mother and my other siblings, watching him suffer when he was 12 years old, it was devastating to us.”
His brother, Jamal, was in an intensive care unit in a Pittsburgh hospital for a couple of weeks because of flu-related complications.
“Now he’s 23 and he’s doing great,” Knox said. “I’m just happy he made it through it. We’re all happy he pulled through that because it was life and death for him.”
After practice, the linebacker rushed over to Shoppers Drug Mart at the Victoria Square Shopping Centre to get his flu shot on Monday —the first day free influenza vaccinations kicked off in the province.
Knox is the official spokesperson for the Pharmacy Association of Saskatchewan’s (PAS) public education campaign on flu shots this year.
“I want to bring awareness to the kids and the whole community about the flu and make sure that it doesn’t happen to anyone else,” Knox said. “I make it a priority to get (the flu shot) every year .... The flu is contagious, so I know if I get mine, I’m helping the team out.”
Health Minister Jim Reiter backed Knox’s message and rolled up his long shirt sleeve to get the flu shot.
“I’m privileged to hold the position of health minister right now and really it’s a case of getting the message out to people and encourage them to get their flu shots,” he said. “Medical professionals tell us that it’s very important. It really reduces the chances of somebody getting sick through the winter, so anything I can do to help promote that, I’m happy to do so.”
The vaccine changes every year, based on the strains most active in the southern hemisphere.
“We’re seeing that in Australia and Hong Kong, the strain that is in this year’s vaccine is particularly challenging in that there have been a lot more hospitalizations than in the past few years,” said Myla Wollbaum, director of professional practice with the Pharmacy Association of Saskatchewan and a practising Regina pharmacist.
“It could be a season where people get more sick from the flu so, of course, we highly recommend getting the flu vaccine this year.”
On average in Canada, there are about 20,000 flu-related hospitalizations every year and 4,000 deaths related to the flu, Wollbaum noted.
This year, 316 pharmacies are participating in the publicly funded influenza vaccination program, which represents 75 per cent of Saskatchewan pharmacies, Wollbaum said.
However, pharmacists can only vaccinate children nine years and older, and adults.
Children under nine who are receiving their first flu shot need two flu vaccinations and must get them at public health clinics, Wollbaum said.
“After the age of nine, you only need one flu shot a year,” she said. “It’s to pump up the immune system.”
This is the third year pharmacists will give flu shots.
In the first year, 56,000 residents were vaccinated in community pharmacies. That number jumped to 90,000 of the 238,000 flu shots given last year.
Wollbaum attributes the increase in vaccinations to patients having more options.