Edition 244
www.thecourier.es
Friday 23rd October 2015
GETTING THE NEEDLE
DON’T FORGET! The clocks go back on Sunday October 25 2015 at 3am, Spanish time.
INJECTION CALL FOR VULNERABLE GROUPS ALEX TRELINSKI
T
he annual winter flu jab campaigns have started across Spain, including the Costa Blanca and the Murcia region, with anybody considered 'at risk' being asked to get an injection at their local health centre. Health experts say having the vaccination can cut winter hospital admissions by forty five percent since influenza can create 'major health risks' in chronically-ill patients. Medics say this year's flu risk does not appear as though it will be specifically viral, unlike in previous winters when figures suggested that a possible looked set to break out. Health authorities offer vaccinations to the over60s, plus anyone who has regular contact with the general public including medical workers, teachers, police officers, firefighters, and anyone working with the elderly, plus those who have chronic or serious health conditions such as cardiovascular problems, diabetes or cancer, and pregnant women. Young children also qualify. Valencian health minister, Carmen Stark, launched the campaign for the Valencia region on Monday saying that 780 thousand
WHATSON’S TV VIEWS
The Courier TV Pull-out The latest news from tele-land 23rd Oct - 29th Oct shots costing two and a quarter million euro have been allocated to the region with 270 thousand shots available in Alicante Province. The campaign will run until the end of January with eighteen hundred vaccination sites available across the whole of the Valencian region. Over in Murcia, the regional health minister, Encarna Guillen, said that it was vital that people classified as being in a vulnerable group should get a flu jab, adding that vaccination could reduce the number of hospital admissions during the winter period by up to
45 percent. The region has bought a quarter of a million shots of the vaccine, costing close to 900 thousand euro. Medical experts say preventing 'flu is 'the responsibility of healthcare professionals, patients and the public at large' since the vaccination is 'the only way of avoiding exposure to 'an illness with potentially serious consequences'. Those who do not fall into the 'high risk' category do not normally get a vaccination free of charge on the health service, but the jab can be bought over the counter at a pharmacy and either self-
administered or given by a nurse at a local health centre by appointment. Health authorities stress that the 'flu vaccination is effective, has no sideeffects and for the sake of one short appointment at the patient's local GP clinic, can save lives and prevent a great deal of unnecessary work and cost for medical services. Medics emphasise that those at risk of catching the virus who do not have the jab are also exposing other people to the perils of infection, meaning it is socially responsible to arrange to have the flu injection.
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