As fall approaches and the weather gets colder, the influenza season is upon us. The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) launches this year’s government-funded seasonal influenza vaccination campaign on October 1. On September 30, TV Celebrity Song Yi-ming (宋逸民) and wife Chen Wei-ling(陳維齡) brought their daughter to receive the influenza vaccine and urged all individuals that are eligible for government-funded vaccine to get vaccinated against influenza.

Song stated that both his daughter and son are eligible for government-funded vaccine this year. His daughter is one of the at-risk individuals who could easily develop complications after becoming infected and his son is one of the individuals who are prone to pass on infection to at-risk groups. Hence, to ensure the health of his two precious children, he had planned to get both of them vaccinated against influenza this year.

The Deputy Minister Chuang Jen-hsiang of Taiwan CDC stressed that the vaccine for use in this year’s vaccination campaign contains two influenza A viruses (H1N1 and H3N2) and one influenza B virus as recommended by the World Health Organization for the 2015-2016 influenza season (northern hemisphere winter). This year, Taiwan CDC purchased a total of 3,163,000 doses of the vaccine. The target groups to receive the government-funded vaccine include elderly people aged 65 and older, residents at nursing institutes, children aged 6 months through 6 years, elementary school students from grade 1 through 6, pregnant women, people aged between 50 and 64 with chronic medical conditions that are at increased risk for influenza, people with major illness/injury, health care workers and public health personnel, as well as poultry farmers and animal health inspectors. All eligible individuals are advised to get vaccinated before the peak of the influenza season in order to ensure protection. On the other hand, beginning October 1, elderly who are aged above 75 and have not received the pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine previously are eligible for one does of the pneumococcal vaccine. Elderly who are eligible for both the influenza and pneumococcal vaccines are recommended to receive both vaccines at the same time to get protection against both diseases. Elderly, children and people with chronic medical conditions are all at increased risk for influenza-related complications. Since grandparents in Taiwan are usually the care takers of young children in the household and children in schools are likely to pass on the virus to other children and elderly members in the family from getting infected in schools, both children and elderly are urged to get timely vaccination to ensure their own health and the health of others.

Taiwan CDC reminds that even though getting influenza vaccination can effectively lower the likelihood of infection, vaccinated individuals can still caught a cold caused by another virus. Therefore, the public is recommended to still pay attention to personal hygiene and take other precautions to prevent influenza infection. For more information, please visit the Taiwan CDC’s website at http://www.cdc.gov.tw or call the toll-free Communicable Disease Reporting and Care Hotline, 1922 (or 0800-001922).