Be prepared

Vega Baja Hospital will be adding more staff in the emergency department to deal with the expected increase of patients with respiratory diseases due to the cold weather over the last few days. Forecasts show that flu cases will peak during the first days of February.

This viral disease, which affects a large population and can have serious consequences for those at risk, has advanced in comparison with previous years and has already reached the level of epidemic in the Valencian Community - exceeding 80 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. In Orihuela, during the first week of January, there were 64 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, which increased to 125 cases in the second week.

The Ministry of Health launched its vaccination campaign against influenza last October 24th.  This will end on Tuesday, January 31st. For this campaign, a total of 51,000 doses were distributed of which 29,500 went to the health department of Torrevieja and 21,500 to the health department of Orihuela,

During the last vaccination campaign 50% of people over 65 years old were covered,  close to that of the Valencian Community, which was around 51%.

Almost 95% of infections identified by the Sentinel network had not been vaccinated which showed that the best protection against contagion was still vaccination.

As it happens, Pamela was offered a flu jab on her last visit to the doctor but I wasn't - go figure!