By Ethan Benedicto
With 2023 seeing one of the worst flu seasons in Australia since 2019, there is a renewed push for people to be vaccinated against the illness.
Benefits of getting the jab can include flu prevention, less severe symptoms, community protection and lower risk of complications, according to Blooms the Chemist, which is offering free flu vaccinations to some people at their Narre Warren and Cranbourne stores amid a drop in jab rates post-Covid. Experts have attributed the decline to vaccine fatigue.
Federation University professor Stuart Berzins said that the Covid pandemic has altered the way that societies function in many ways, and “part of that was almost a requirement to be vaccinated and to be vaccinated regularly”.
“The immediate severity of the pandemic felt by the people has lessened, along with that has sort of become, a lessening of the urgency to keep up with vaccinations,” he said.
Professor Berzins, an expert in immunology, also added that this reaction to Covid boosters has also been felt with flu vaccinations, considering that they themselves have never been taken up by the community at the same rate the Covid vaccines were.
With vaccinations out of mind, people are “a little bit more relaxed about Covid and getting vaccines in general, which includes the importance of vaccines”.
According to the Australian Vaccine Services, 2023’s flu cases had a 10 per cent increase compared to 2022, with vaccination rates in Victoria down 18.9 per cent and children six months to five years being the least likely to be vaccinated.
While Professor Berzins emphasised the importance of the general public taking their flu shots, he said that “people need to be able to make that kind of decision about whether to be vaccinated being fully informed”.
“I think the last thing we want a society is to give up on sending messages about vaccination because then we run the risk of people just not realising how important it is and how much it reduces the risk of becoming seriously ill from diseases,” he said.
Influenza itself is not a new phenomenon, where in 2019 there were over 300,000 laboratory-confirmed cases of the disease in Australia, according to the Department of Health.
While symptoms for the disease are more often mild than not, the main factor is that “there are different strains of influenza”.
“We’ve all heard of Omicron, we’ve heard of variations of Omicron that are sort of appearing now with their different strings of numbers and letters and so on, so people are sort of comfortable that there are different viruses out there.
“When you get infected with influenza, it’s correct that if you recover, then you are going to have some immunity built up against that form of the virus – but you don’t know if you’re going to get that form of the virus again.
“In fact the reason we need to get vaccinated every year for the flu isn’t because our immunity is weak and it just disappears, it’s because the variants of the influenza regularly change from year to year,” Professor Berzins said.
On the subject of delivering the message, the professor encouraged moderation and that “there needs to be a balance”, with different sources such as doctors playing an important role in delivering it.
“It’s important to bear in mind that a lot of people who think they might have had influenza have probably not, they probably had a form of the common cold.
“So people who are immunosuppressed [especially] kids are at a high risk of getting very sick from influenza, so in those sorts of cases it’s even more portent to get as much protection as you can.
“The vaccine is never going to weaken your protection; it’s always going to strengthen it, so why invite the risk of having another form of influenza that might make you seriously unwell?” Professor Berzins said.
A media release by Ambulance Victoria on 31 May detailed that they are experiencing significant demand due to seasonal illness, with flu cases having increased in the state by 65 per cent in the fortnight leading to the end of May.
While reminding the public to save triple zero (000) calls for emergencies, AV director of emergency management, Justin Dunlop added that “this time of year, is a particularly bad time for the spread of illnesses and a busy time for our paramedics”.
“By staying up to date with your yearly vaccinations, it helps you and the people around you.
“It also makes a difference by reducing demand on our paramedics who are facing a busy ahead,” he said.
For Professor Berzins, the best way that the general public can avoid being infected, or seriously ill from influenza is “to be vaccinated where effective vaccines are available”.