I didn’t know this and I suspect others don’t know about it either. This year’s flu jab protects against H1N1 and other common seasonal flu strains. To be clear, it is a vaccine against swine flu and that’s important. It’s rather strange that I wasn’t told this because I believed that the flu jab simply protected against influenza, which I’ve only had once in my life.
So, there wasn’t a great sense of obligation to get the flu jab this year but now I understand that it protects against swine flu I am pleased that I took the vaccine.
In the UK, health chiefs have said that flu killed more people than the coronavirus last winter. They are encouraging people to get vaccinated mainly because there is a resurgence in a strain of swine flu.
There were 14,600 excess deaths from flu in the six months from October to March last winter according to The Times today. This compares with 10,300 excess deaths from coronavirus.
Flu has caused more hospital admissions at its peak than coronavirus.
In Australia, swine flu has been circulating at high levels. The country has just had its winter flu season.
In short, swine flu is a genuine health problem. Prof Susan Hopkins, chief medical officer at UKHSA said: “Last winter the vaccine prevented an estimated 25,000 hospitalisations, but this could be even greater if all those eligible for the flu vaccine came forward this year. Pregnant women, young children and those with chronic health conditions are particularly vulnerable.”
In the UK, more than 30 million people are eligible for the free NHS flu jab. This includes children and those over 65.
Swine flu
H1N1 flu is a type of influenza A virus. As I understand it, a new H1N1 virus began circulating, causing illness in humans during the 2009-2010 flu season. It’s an influenza virus that infects birds, pigs and of course humans.
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In 2009 the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared an H1N1 flu pandemic. It is estimated that it killed 284,400 people that year. The pandemic was declared over in 2010 but this swine flu variant remained in the system and it causes seasonal flu.
If you get it, you normally get better on your own but complications can sometimes be deadly especially for those with immunocompromised immune systems and others at high risk.
The symptoms caused by H1N1 are similar to those caused by other flu viruses. They include:
- Sometimes a fever
- aching muscles
- cough
- sore throat
- chills and sweats
- eye pain
- watery red eyes
- runny or stuffy nose
- body aches, headache, weakness and tiredness, diarrhoea, feeling sick to the stomach, vomiting.
The symptoms commence about 1-4 days after being exposed to the virus.
The way H1N1 causes flu is by infecting the cells that line the lungs, throat and nose. It is spread through the air in water droplets released when a person with the disease talks, breathes, sneezes and or coughs. The other person breathes in these water droplets contaminated with the virus. You can also get the virus by touching contaminated surfaces and then touching your eyes, nose or mouth.
You can’t get the disease by eating pork. Those with the disease can spread it from about a day before symptoms appear until about four days after they start. Those with weakened immune systems and children can spread the virus for a longer period.
Zoonotic
Swine flu is a zoonosis because the disease is zoonotic to use a couple of technical terms. Covid-19 is also a zoonotic disease. This means that it infects animals and people and it can spread from animals to people and from people to animals. Zookeepers gave Covid to big cats in the US.
