The Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) Web site contains a wealth of data and information, including epidemic summaries, virus antigenicity and drug resistance data for every influenza season since 2005.
In the past few years, the annual procurement of publicly funded flu vaccines has remained steady at about 6 million doses. The aim has been to prioritize frontline medical staff and members of certain groups to reduce their risk of infection, and to minimize the impact if they contract the flu.
Unfortunately, this good policy has not been popular in the past. Every year the government has to encourage the public to get a flu shot, and surplus vaccine doses are discarded by spring the following year.
Vaccines are indeed an important tool in preventing infectious diseases, but there are other methods that are more economical and lack side effects, namely three things that Taiwanese are already doing: wearing masks, carefully washing their hands and maintaining social distancing.
The information on the CDC Web site is clear: As a result of the effective implementation of the various disease prevention measures adopted this year to combat COVID-19, the flu season has been declared over in its ninth week.
By that time, the number of people seeking treatment for the flu had, for two consecutive weeks, been lower than it was during the weeks in which the flu season was declared over in the past four flu seasons.
By contrast, the 2018-2019 flu season was declared over after 12 weeks, and the previous flu season ended only after 32 weeks, which is a huge difference.
During all these seasons, there were no significant difference in the number of people receiving a flu shot or in the vaccines used, which clearly shows the significant benefits of these three daily hygienic measures.
This year, people are falling over each other in their rush to get a flu shot. In this situation, it does not matter if the authorities had made better preparations ahead of time — even if they had, it would be difficult to satisfy the sharp increase in demand that has resulted from what can only be described as a panic.
In the past, medical staff have been told that they must be vaccinated against the flu because they are in direct contact with patients and because it is part of national health policy.
In addition, hospitals have established a flu vaccination rate benchmark that every department must meet, and anyone who does not get vaccinated must provide good reasons for why they did not.
This year has been different. Many clinic and hospital employees still cannot get a flu shot due to limited access. As they carry out their duties, they can certainly make sure that they wash their hands carefully and frequently, and make sure that they wear a mask, but they cannot maintain social distancing from their patients.
To avoid cluster infections at hospitals and clinics, which would have an impact on healthcare workers’ overall ability to do their jobs, the government must give priority to medical staff in distributing any available vaccines.
Rita Shen is a professor and dean at National Taiwan University’s School of Pharmacy.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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