Index – National – Influenza Vaccine: It is not an accident that the government has ordered exactly as much as last year

As we wrote in our article yesterday, the first vaccines arrived at GP surgeries this week after the government made the flu vaccine free for everyone this season.

However, the Ministry of Human Resources also announced this week that a total of 1.3 million flu vaccines are available, exactly the same as last year and prior years.

In the 2019/2020 flu season, 719,898 people received a free flu vaccine, according to a summary from the National Center for Public Health, meaning that about half of last year’s vaccine ran out.

I am not at all surprised that a dose corresponding to last year’s kit is available for now. Especially after that was last year, and then half was finally discarded. It would be a great result in itself if only ten percent of the total stock ended up in the trash next spring.

– András Csilek, an infectologist and president of the BAZ county regional organization of the Hungarian Medical Chamber, told the Index.

András Csilek sees that the practice has worked well so far in that chronic elderly patients, mainly residents of social homes, have consistently received flu vaccines each year. However, according to him, the vast majority of the Hungarian workforce was less health conscious in this area.

How much flu pandemic is expected this year?

Influenza pandemics generally come from China, but they generally arrive in Hungary from the west and arrive in eastern Hungary relatively late, in the middle of January. The peak is even further away, so you don’t have to panic about the flu in mid-October, says the infectologist.

To be sure, this past winter season, a relatively large flu pandemic swept across the country, just as a large flu pandemic is normally expected every five to ten years. Of course, no one can know in advance how big this year’s epidemic will be.

András Csilek is forecasting cautiously.

According to him, the size of the epidemic depends mainly on how well the seasonally produced vaccine is in a given year, which is always determined in relation to the influenza epidemic in the southern hemisphere.

There are times when it works best, there are times when it is less, while the extent of the epidemic also depends largely on the health awareness of the population about how many people will be vaccinated with the flu vaccine, which has been made free for everyone this year.

Explains the specialist.

Can the lack of doctors cause disorders?

András Csilek also considers the general shortage of Hungarian GPs to be a serious problem, but does not believe that this has ever meant a disruption in the administration of the flu vaccine. In fact, vaccination is often a demanding story for doctors, but he sees that whoever wants it can get the flu shot without problems.

As an example, he mentions that residents of social homes in the most vulnerable group receive the doctor locally, and elderly patients go to the family doctor anyway to prescribe their medications. At this point, they may need to get vaccinated.

It would be nice to keep up with the fact that we are so sad that there is so much demand for the flu vaccine that there is no one to administer the vaccine. I am a bit pessimistic about the desire of the Hungarian population to get vaccinated. But now I see the emotion that I hope it perseveres and people get vaccinated, one by one all

– waits András Csilek, who also points out that we still have a long time for the vaccination program until the beginning of the epidemic, which will take place in mid-December.

Regardless, as he says, companies can still organize flu vaccination for their employees locally. And who remembers, during the H1N1 pandemic of 2009, 2010, there was such demand for the vaccine that vaccination points were set up throughout the country, which he said could in principle be repeated at any time.

(Cover image: Ildikó Feketéné Zeke, Nógrád County Medical Director, will be vaccinated against influenza on one of the test buses in Nógrádszakál at the last stop of this year’s tour of the program called Screening on October 25 2019. October 25, 2019.

MTI / Péter Komka)