10 Jun 2022 |

Flu season 2022 its a doozy!

Flu season 2022 its a doozy!

Flu season 2022 it’s a doozy!

According to the NT news (May 23) young Australians (age 15-24) and kids (younger than 10 years) are dominating flu cases with more than 7000 notifications in just two weeks.

Young Australians are emerging as the most at risk group as the whole country sees an early start to the flu season. National disease surveillance data has revealed 10,599 cases have been reported this year with 7173 in the two weeks prior to May 8th and this has been steadily rising across the Territory.

Annual peak flu season generally runs from June to September, but Australia has not seen a typical flu season since 2019 thanks to COVID 19 restrictions including the international travel ban.

In a joint statement, Australia’s deputy chief MO Dr Sonya Bennett and chief nursing and midwifery officer, Professor Alison McMillan urged people to maximise their protection against influenza and COVID by being vaccinated.

Some top tips for everyone but especially important for those in the high-risk age groups

Get your flu vaccination: As with COVID if you have been vaccinated you can still get the illness, but it is likely to be much less severe. Please remember it can take up to two weeks for it to take effect so sooner is better than later.

Hand hygiene & social distancing: This a practice we have become well acquainted with in recent years and works well with the flu as well as COVID.

Stay home if you don’t feel well: This helps with the spread of colds, flus, and other viruses.

Given the age group affected so far it is particularly important to protect our kids against this flu please click below for some more information and FAQs on flu vaccinations for children from the Royal Melbourne childrens hospital.

Kids Health Information : Influenza (flu) vaccine (rch.org.au)

If you haven’t seen it yet you may also wish to read our informative article on Flu vaccination in the COVID era (asthmant.org.au)

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