The Importance of Influenza Vaccination in Australia
Influenza is not the usual cold you get but an extremely infectious illness which requires good amount of medical treatment and care to protect the patient. Here are some facts that would help you to understand the seriousness of the disease:
- It is a highly communicable and infrequently fatal disease that can easily spread through sneezing and coughing.
- According to research, around 2,500 Australians lose their lives to influenza related infections every year.
- The annual influenza vaccination is the one and only most successful measure used to protect against this deadly flu.
- People under the age of 65 years are most vulnerable to this disease.
- The most common reason of absenteeism at workplace in Australia is due influenza, which results in a huge loss to the economy.
The effects of vaccination
In vaccination, a tiny trace of the influenza virus is injected to the body which cause the immune system to respond and fight back as if the body have been actually affected. Although this might give rise to some temporary reactions but they are not as severe as compared to the original disease.
There are several procedures to produce influenza vaccinations but the most effective method is to cultivate the virus in the fertilised eggs of hens. After the completion of the purification process, the virus stays dormant to produce an inactivated virus immunisation.
The production of influenza vaccination
These influenza vaccinations usually keep on changing depending on the nature and type of the disease. The high rate of transformation of viruses does not allow the protection to stay for more than few years. The conformation of the breed of the virus which is most likely to circulate in the coming year is generally been confirmed by the World Health Organisation such that the pharmaceutical companies can quickly develop the new vaccinations required by the specific breed of viruses.
The avian influenza is a specific vaccination developed to protect the poultry. This is a very strong and influential vaccination as it works against several breeds of viruses together either in an attempt to completely exterminate the epidemic or as a part of the precautionary strategy.
The whole procedure of formulation as well as the production of millions of vaccines to fight against the seasonal epidemics takes around six months of time. There is a big possibility where you might get infected before vaccination with the very breed of virus that the vaccination is supposed to protect you against, as the immunisation process takes 2 weeks of time to become effective.
Apart from the seasonal influenza vaccinations, the researchers are presently engaged in developing a vaccine which would fight against the virulent influenza. On successful development and production of this vaccination, millions of lives could be saved if an influenza epidemic breaks out. As time is limited for this process, the researchers are looking to use the non egg based option and is expected to produce results even faster.
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