Dr. Samir Sinha is the director of well being coverage analysis on the Nationwide Institute on Growing older and the director of geriatrics at Sinai Well being and the College Well being Community.
Yearly in Canada, the flu causes an estimated 175,000 emergency division visits, greater than 12,000 hospitalizations and three,500 deaths, making it considered one of Canada’s main causes of dying. Older folks and people with sure power well being situations are particularly prone to extreme sickness and influenza-related issues.
If Australia’s expertise this yr is any indication, their file variety of flu circumstances suggests we’re solely at the start of considered one of our worst influenza seasons. Along with the persevering with variety of COVID-19 infections and an unprecedented surge in respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a foul flu season dangers additional overwhelming our already strained well being care programs.
So why aren’t we taking the flu extra severely?
It’s also significantly worrying that, in lots of components of Canada, persons are at the next danger of extreme and presumably deadly penalties of the flu as a result of they stay in a province or territory that is not doing two easy issues to assist scale back its unfold: actively vaccinating for a couple of sickness on the identical time, and providing free entry to enhanced flu vaccines for older Canadians.
The excellent news is that influenza is among the most vaccine-preventable causes of dying in Canada. The Nationwide Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) recommends everybody aged six months and older get a seasonal influenza vaccine yearly. But regardless of the numerous and power burden of the flu, Canada’s influenza vaccination charges stay stubbornly low.
It is not that Canadians are broadly against being vaccinated. Certainly, survey knowledge from the Nationwide Institute on Growing older (NIA) demonstrated the COVID-19 pandemic truly improved Canadians’ general attitudes about vaccines and their willingness to get a flu shot.
We have to shortly construct on this transformation in sentiment with extra methods to extend influenza vaccine uptake, and our knowledge determine two essential methods to do that.
The primary manner is to make it extra handy for folks to get their flu shot, together with by providing it on the identical time they get a COVID-19 booster or one other vaccine for older Canadians, such because the pneumococcal or shingles vaccine. NACI has already decided that the co-administration of those explicit vaccines is protected. As well as, our survey confirmed almost 60 per cent of Canadians and 73 per cent of older Canadians mentioned they might get a flu shot and COVID-19 vaccine on the identical time if that they had the choice.
The second manner is to offer these with weaker immune programs an enhanced influenza vaccine, quite than a typical vaccine. Enhanced vaccines encourage the physique to create a stronger immune response than would happen with a typical vaccine and, as such, are the popular selection for older adults. A scientific assessment launched this yr by the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices confirmed enhanced vaccines are constantly simpler for older adults than standard-dose vaccines, particularly in terms of flu-associated hospitalizations.
Regardless of the clear proof of the advantages of enhanced influenza vaccines, getting publicly funded entry to them in Canada is determined by the place you reside. In sure provinces and territories – corresponding to Quebec, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut – enhanced influenza vaccines are solely free this yr to some older members of their populations, corresponding to folks dwelling in long-term care settings.
If the purpose of public well being packages is public well being, denying common entry to publicly funded enhanced influenza vaccines is not sensible. The survey knowledge reveals that the majority Canadians agree. Greater than three-quarters say it will be important that older Canadians have entry to enhanced vaccines, and 82 per cent say these vaccines must be accessible to older Canadians freed from cost. This could additionally enhance vaccine uptake, as virtually one-third of older Canadians say they might be extra prone to get a flu shot in the event that they had been provided free entry to enhanced vaccines.
A number of different international locations – corresponding to the USA, United Kingdom, Australia and Germany – already present publicly funded enhanced flu vaccines for his or her older populations. All of Canada’s provinces and territories ought to do the identical, and shortly, because the influenza season is already upon us and persons are already getting sick. To that finish, NACI ought to comply with the instance of its US counterpart and provides clear steerage to provinces and territories about the advantages of getting enhanced influenza vaccines into the arms of all older Canadians and others with greater dangers of issues from the flu.
Within the meantime, everybody can do their half by taking the flu extra severely – and getting their pictures as quickly as attainable.