The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced yesterday that pregnant women are to be included on the list of eligible recipients of government-funded influenza vaccines for the first time this year, in a bid to reduce their risk of developing serious flu-related complications that could jeopardize the health of their fetuses.
“In addition, the centers has also lowered the age of eligibility for the vaccine for patients with chronic illness, from 60 to 50 years old,” CDC Deputy Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) told a routine press briefing in Taipei yesterday.
Chou said a total of 3.095 million doses of free trivalent flu vaccine would become available for high-risk groups at local health centers and the nation’s 3,000 contracted medical facilities starting on Wednesday.
Those eligible include people aged 65 and over; nursing home residents; children between the ages of six months and 12 years; patients with rare or acute diseases; patients aged between 50 and 64 with chronic diseases; pregnant women; and workers in the healthcare and animal disease prevention industries, Chou said.
Yang Chin-hui (楊靖慧), director at the centers’ Division of Preparedness and Emerging Infectious Diseases, said although the centers are currently unable to make the free flu vaccines accessible to the general public due to budget concerns, people who perceive themselves as at risk of contracting flu are advised to pay for flu shots out of their own pocket.
“It is expected to cost them between NT$400 and NT$600 per vaccine, depending on which hospital they go to,” Yang said.
Taiwan Society of Perinatology director-general Tsai Ming-sung (蔡明松), who also serves as the head of Cathay General Hospital’s department of obstetrics and gynecology, has welcomed the extension of the free vaccination program to mothers-to-be.
“Research has shown that pregnant women who are infected with influenza during pregnancy are more susceptible to developing severe complications, such as pneumonia and meningitis, as well as suffering miscarriages or premature labor,” Tsai said.
What is more alarming is that the fetuses of women who contract influenza would also be more prone to neural tube defects, cleft lips and heart problems, Tsai said, urging pregnant women to get vaccinated as soon as possible for the sake of their own health, as well as that of their babies.
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