How the vaccine has controlled the flu rate Down Under

AN INDICATION of the difference the major new flu vaccine programme might make can be seen in what’s happened in Australia, where recordbreaking vaccination numbers have helped suppress flu this year.

There were under 21,000 confirmed cases of flu and just 36 deaths between January and the end of June this year — compared with almost 120,000 cases of flu and 231 deaths in the same period last year.

The flu infection figures have barely risen since — despite August, which is the traditional peak of the Australian flu season, fast approaching.

‘If we could get this sort of effect every year, we’d be very happy,’ said Professor Ian Barr, deputy director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for

Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne. Cases of flu typically start to increase in Australia from January, before peaking in the winter (our summer) and, in April, the government announced it had ordered a record number of vaccines.

The three million extra doses meant 16.5 million Australians — two-thirds of the population — could be immunised. Five weeks on, more than 7.3 million people had been vaccinated — up from 4.5million in the same period last year and double the 2018 figure.

Virologist Professor John Oxford says ‘it would be a very sensible conclusion’ that the vaccination drive has helped keep the virus at bay. He adds: ‘We should learn from what has happened

in Australia — how to encourage people who haven’t been vaccinated before to come forward and have the vaccine.’

The raft of measures implemented to stifle Covid-19 will also have been key and, indeed, the number of people with flu symptoms did rise slightly after lockdown eased in Australia.

‘Measures like hand-washing and social distancing that help stop the coronavirus also help stop the spread of flu, and vaccination plays an important role,’ says Dr Simon Clarke, a virologist at the University of Reading.