Under the theme “Immunise yourself, Protect your community”, the Ministry of Health and Prevention, MoHAP, has launched its annual National Seasonal Flu Awareness Campaign 2020, which lasts until the end of January 2021.
The campaign is being organised in cooperation with Abu Dhabi Public Health Centre, ADPHC, Abu Dhabi Health Services, SEHA, and Dubai Health Authority, DHA, and it aims to highlight the importance of getting vaccinated against seasonal flu and acquaint health workers with the best international practices to prevent the risks of the influenza virus.
This was stated during a press conference on Monday at the InterContinental Dubai – Festival City, in the presence of Dr. Hussein Abdul Rahman Al-Rand, Under-Secretary of the ministry’s Health Assistant Sector, Health Centres, and Clinics, Dr. Anwar Sallam, Chief Medical Officer, SEHA, Dr. Nada Al Marzouqi, Director of Preventive Medicine Department, Dr. Farida Al Hosani, Director of the Department of Communicable Diseases at the Abu Dhabi Centre for Public Health, and Dr. Hend Al Awadhi, Head of Health Promotion and Education Section, DHA.
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The campaign, which coincides with the COVID-19 pandemic, aims to raise awareness through tailor-made lectures and training courses, as well as to enhance the awareness of community members about the nature of this disease, its causes and symptoms, and ways of prevention provide sufficient amounts of vaccines for target groups, and increase vaccination coverage rates while underlining the readiness of health centres to receive those wishing to take the vaccine amid stringent precautionary and preventive measures.
In his opening remarks, Dr. Al-Rand said, “The National Seasonal Flu Awareness Campaign is one of the most important events on the ministry’s agenda. MoHAP was keen to launch early this annual campaign, which is packed with a variety of awareness-raising programmes, to reach out to the largest segment of target groups and to ensure that they are getting vaccinated against this virus, to reduce the undesirable complications of one of the most major challenges to health systems around the world.”
“SEHA, in cooperation with MoHAP and DHA, has been providing vaccines in its hospitals and health centres, following the highest levels of safety and preventive measures. The company also strives to get its workers vaccinated in their work locations to prevent seasonal influenza,” Dr. Sallam stated.
“In 2019-2020, SEHA provided the influenza vaccine to about 180,000 citizens and residents of Abu Dhabi, in addition to vaccinating 22,394 employees of the company itself, at a rate of 97 percent of the employees. This comes as part of our commitment to achieving the ‘A Healthier Abu Dhabi’ vision and making prevention a lifestyle among community members,” he said concluding his speech.
Awareness and education Dr. Al Hosani stressed the importance of the annual campaign, saying it was given utmost attention by the Department of Communicable Diseases, which spared no effort to cooperate with various health authorities in this respect.
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“The department has initiated several measures to curb the spread of seasonal flu among community members. We have made the vaccine available before the flu breaks out and launched many awareness and educational campaigns to enhance people’s knowledge about influenza,” Al Hosani added.
Dr. Al Marzouqi said, stated that seasonal influenza causes about 3 to 5 million severe illnesses and about 250,000 to 500,000 deaths, noting that this disease is a viral infection that spreads easily among the individuals. Such figures increase the importance of the seasonal flu vaccine which is considered a safe and effective vaccine.
“For 60 years, health systems worldwide have been using influenza vaccine with high success rates in reducing the disease complications and hospitalisation,” Al-Jassmi said.
Dr. Al Awadhi emphasised the safety of the influenza vaccine and its effective role in curbing the complications of this disease, especially among the most vulnerable groups, including children under 5 years of age, adults over the age of 65 years, pregnant women, and people with chronic diseases such as asthma, heart disease, kidney and liver diseases, diabetes, and health workers.
