Australia is facing a prolonged flu season which could be exacerbated by a spike in interstate travel due to the school holidays and the AFL Grand Final.<\/p>\n
While WA is enjoying a milder flu season this year, thanks in part to rising child immunisation numbers, doctors have warned it is not over and say it is not too late to get vaccinated.<\/p>\n
WA Health Department data published yesterday shows weekly influenza notifications fell by 20 to 686 for the week up to September 27.<\/p>\n
This was in the \u201cmid to higher-range\u201d of cases usually reported at this time of year. With weekly case numbers at similar levels for the past few weeks it is unclear if WA\u2019s flu season has peaked.<\/p>\n
With 10,439 cases so far this year, WA is faring far better than NSW which has exceeded 80,000 cases and Victoria with more than 30,000.<\/p>\n
But with 30,000 Fremantle fans returning home from Victoria and others travelling interstate during the school holidays, West Australians are being urged to remain vigilant.<\/p>\n
Australian Medical Association WA\u2019s GP spokesman Dr Simon Torvaldsen said the flu season so far had been mild but prolonged.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are still seeing people with influenza A and B, it\u2019s quite likely a late peak of the season . . . if people aren\u2019t vaccinated, they should be, especially if they are travelling,\u201d Dr Torvaldsen said.<\/p>\n
He said the trend of high case numbers in spring suggested people should not \u201crush out and get the vaccine too early.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately some pharmacies promote this, pushing to vaccinate at the end of February, or in March, but the problem is if we get a late peak like we\u2019re getting, your immunisation from the vaccine is starting to wear off just when you need it most,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dr Torvaldsen said the introduction of needle-free vaccine Flu Mist in WA this year had played a role in WA\u2019s mild season and was a \u201cstep forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the latest Australian Centre for Disease Control report, influenza-like illness rates in helpline callers nationally have been increasing since April and since late August have been higher than at the same time in previous years.<\/p>\n
The centre said the increase in influenza numbers later in the year was due to a combination of factors, including natural waning immunity following lower-than-usual case numbers earlier in the year and \u201cincreased population mixing\u201d after the return to school following the July holidays.<\/p>\n
Pharmacy Guild of Australia WA Branch president Andrew Ngeow said West Australians should be commended for getting vaccinated and being vigilant across the winter period, which had led to the lowest numbers recorded over the past four years.<\/p>\n
He said the timing of WA\u2019s successful free flu program was at the determination of the Department of Health\u2019s experts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia is facing a prolonged flu season which could be exacerbated by a spike in interstate travel due…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":913458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,137,44],"class_list":["post-913457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}