Australia On Track for a Killer Flu Season

Australia is on track for a killer flu season, warn health experts. Numbers show that three times as many people have been diagnosed with the virus compared to the same period in previous years.

Professor Robert Booy, Chair of the Immunization Coalition said New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia has majority of the cases. Professor Booy said 10,000 people have been diagnosed with flu in March this year, whereas it was only 3,173 people in March 2018. “In 2018, Australia had a pretty quiet flu season and that means the community immunity wasn’t built up to protect against this year’s virus. It means many more people will be prone to the flu this year and susceptible to getting it.” Professor Booy said many Australians had gone to the US for the holidays earlier in the year and brought back the flu. “And in February, school goes back and kids mix and spread the flu.”

Health experts say more deaths from the flu occur in people aged over 65, and are usually from complications like pneumonia, heart attacks and stroke. In a busy year, Professor Booy said there were a number of people who would be expected to get the flu and die from it. “This year, we expect the flu to kill at least 4,000 people which is the same number as deaths from suicide and road toll combined,” he said. However, Dr Richard Kidd, Chair of the Australian Medical Association Council of GPs said one in 10 people who died in intensive care from the flu were otherwise healthy.

Australians can get vaccinated against flu through the National Immunization Program (NIP). As per reports, the government has secured more than 6 million doses of the vaccine to help protect those most at risk of getting sick.