The third phase of government-funded flu vaccinations started yesterday, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said, urging pregnant women, government health workers and others who are eligible for the free vaccinations to get their shots before the Lunar New Year holiday.
The final round of free vaccinations is available for adults aged 50 to 64; pregnant women and parents of infants younger than six months old; caretakers at long-term care centers and nursing homes; workers at health departments and disease prevention agencies; childcare facility and nursery employees; and poultry, livestock and animal disease prevention workers, the CDC said.
People with rare diseases, catastrophic illness, high-risk chronic diseases or a body mass index of 30 and more, are also eligible, it added.
The government-funded quadrivalent vaccine, provided in three phases to people in higher-risk categories starting from Nov. 15 last year, protects against two strains of influenza A — H1N1 and H3N2 — and two strains of influenza B — the Yamagata and Victoria lineages, it said.
The first round of shots focused on elementary to high-school students and medical professionals, and the second phase expanded to include preschool children and older people.
The CDC statistics showed that 109,827 hospital visits for flu-like illness were reported last week, which was 8.1 percent more than the previous week.
Among 62 serious cases of flu-related complications reported last week, 59 were infected with the H1N1 virus, 18 cases (29 percent) were people aged 50 to 64 and the youngest case was a nine-month-old, CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said on Tuesday.
Records showed that middle-aged people have lower vaccination rates, but are also at risk of serious complications from the flu, he said.
All eligible recipients, especially middle-aged people, should be vaccinated, and only under two conditions should they avoid getting vaccinated, Taipei City Hospital’s Renai Branch Community Integrated Care Division director Wu Tai-yin (吳岱穎) said yesterday.
“The two conditions are: having had serious adverse reaction after getting vaccinated or having a serious allergic reaction to a certain ingredient in the vaccine, and having an acute severe illness or a fever,” Wu said. “People with mild cold symptoms who do not hav a fever are still advised to get vaccinated.”
As of Sunday, about 3.38 million government-funded vaccines have been administered, with about 1.24 million vaccines unused, and the last batch of about 1.42 million vaccines would be dispatched to local healthcare facilities today, he added.
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