I am getting my flu jab and recommending everyone in practice does the same.
This is not just because I am getting old, I hasten to add. The warnings are coming thick and fast. In 2016, 90,861 Australians suffered from laboratory confirmed influenza, with many more cases going undiagnosed. These figures only represent the tip of the iceberg and figures for flu-related fatality in Australia for this year are expected to reach a record high. Australian medics are recommending the UK adopts their current strategy of promoting flu vaccination across the board, rather than just for those thought vulnerable. The argument here is the same as for many vaccinations, such as the MMR. Herd immunity is a good way of stopping disease transmission. Recently, the NHS has suggested that all its staff are vaccinated for the same reason.
We all remember the spike in the frequency of colds and flu-like diseases when we first were let loose on an unsuspecting public after qualification. Most of us develop resistance to the many infectious strains over the decades such that, by middle age, an annual cold is the typical pattern. That said, new strains appear all the time and a boost of immunity via vaccination is far from an over-reaction.
We are still using single use contact instruments based on spurious risk of prion transmission. We take great pains swabbing our slit lamps down between patients (rightly so). And yet, even though microbial keratitis causing pathogens such as adenovirus are air-transmitted (see our recent CET on viral keratitis), it is still expected by some people for an eye care practitioner to turn up for work with a stinking cold.
And finally, after my recent rant on perception and visual art, thanks to the reader who has pointed out an exhibition running at the Holborne Museum in Bath until January on this very subject.
