It’s just one month until spring – but winter illness is continuing to run rampant.
News of healthy people dying from influenza has been making headlines, and data shows flu hospitalisations in Auckland over July were higher than the previous year.
Māori paediatrician Owen Sinclair — chair of the national immunisation taskforce — told Breakfast the large number of hospital admissions was due to the changing nature of the virus.
“For a lot of people it is just a normal illness, but for a lot of people who require hospitalisation it is a severe illness, a long time off work, a long time off school…”
He said influenza was a “systemic illness” meaning it impacted on the whole body with fevers, chills, lethargy and loss of appetite.
“It kills large numbers of people. So in New Zealand in a normal outbreak you might get 500 to 800 deaths. In America you might get 80,000 deaths in a bad year. So it’s bad stuff.”
Sinclair said peoplewith symptoms of influenza shouldn’t “harden up” and try to carry on working, and should be at home resting.
He said the best way to prevent influenza was to be immunised, and it was especially important for pregnant people, where it could be more severe, and for Māori and Pasifika, who could be hit at a “much higher rate”.
“[Every year] we know this is going to come, and we sort of sit there and wait. There’s no proactive plan that we do … if it was up to me, everyone would get immunised.”
Sinclair said hospitals and doctors were “very busy” over the winter period due to influenza, which could lead to canceled surgeries and important health appointments – while also having an impact on businesses when staff were down sick.
While Sinclair recognised “not everyone can afford it”, he said the most efficient and productive option was to get immunised as the alternative was even more expensive.
“If you’re feeling sick and you go to work, one, you’re inefficient, and two is you make yourself worse, the illness will last longer, and the last thing is you’ll take out your colleagues … the reason we have sick leave is so those things don’t happen.
“Immunisation saves money … we’re talk about saving money in the health system and the best thing you can do is keep people well, to stop illnesses happening in the first place … [influenza] reduces productivity [in the workplace] so [immunisation] pays for itself.”
For people who have the virus, Sinclair said: “Rest up, get better, look after yourself, look after your whānau, look after your colleagues.
“And, if you can, next year get the influenza vaccine.”
