A number of cities in China have started offering free flu shots for the elderly and other vulnerable groups, as experts said that this winter's flu season could be tough due to declining immunity against the disease and lingering threats posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
After two years of low influenza activity amid the disease, preexisting immunity against the disease has dropped, according to Shen Hongbing, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and deputy director of the National Administration of Disease Prevention and Control.
He said the world has already seen an increase in influenza incidence rates this year.
With autumn and winter approaching and the northern hemisphere entering its flu season, the risk of a rapid simultaneous spread of COVID 19 and other respiratory diseases, including flu, is high, Shen said at the 2022 World Influenza Conference earlier this month.
Shen said that coping with two contagious diseases at the same time will likely overstretch medical systems and heighten the risk of death among vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and those with chronic diseases.
It is of great importance to research how to improve surveillance, mass vaccination and disease control work during the epidemic, he said.
According to Feng Zijian, vice-president of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association, it is likely that an anti-seasonal epidemic or novel strains could occur, as COVID 19 has disrupted the usual trajectories of the seasonal flu epidemic.
Given the grim projections of the winter's flu situation, Feng said that the public, particularly vulnerable groups and workers at key venues, are urged to receive their flu vaccine by November, before peak arrives in December.
ALSO READ: Omicron not 'big flu'; it can bite', expert says.
According to the latest guidelines on flu vaccination released in August by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, healthcare workers, staff and participants in major events, workers at nursery and child care facilities, primary and high school teachers and students, as well as elderly and chronic illnesses, should be prioritized for flu shots.
People aged 18 and older can receive inactivated flu and inactivated COVID- 19 vaccines at the same time, one in each arm, to save time and resources, Feng said.
Flu vaccination coverage in China has been sluggish for a long time. Peng Zhibin, a researcher at the China CDC, said only 3.34 percent of the total population received flu shots for the 2020 -- 21 flu season, compared with 52.1 percent in the United States and 40 percent in Canada during the same time. In order to address the issue, increasing number of localities have started offering flu shots for children, seniors and health workers for free in recent years.
The Beijing Municipal Health Commission announced on Sept 7 that it would launch a phased free flu vaccine drive beginning in the middle of the month, with those aged 60 and above among the first to receive the dose, followed by primary and high school students and front-line medical workers.
Guangzhou province in Guangdong, as well as Hangzhou and Shaoxing in Zhejiang province and Xinxiang province in Henan province, have begun offering free flu shots for the elderly, though the minimum eligible age ranges from 60 to 70 in different regions, according to local health authorities.
Chen Jun, a 65-year-old resident of Beijing, said she had been getting a flu shot every year for three consecutive years and intended to receive this year's dose immediately after the local community clinic informed her.
Chen said that the shot is free and I do believe in its protective effects.