Flu shots are on their way, along with one very important question: will physicians take their own advice and get vaccinated?
Here are some of the top reasons why physicians should get a flu shot:
- Adults can spread the flu up to one day before showing symptoms. How many symptomless patients could you see in 24 hours who could expose you and, by association, your loved ones to the flu?
- Considering the first point, you could expose many at-risk patients to the flu in 24 hours if you were infected and didn’t know it. Elderly patients, one of the most vulnerable populations, are also the most frequently seen by health care workers.
- The vaccine can protect you 70 to 90 percent of the time if the virus strains in the vaccine are well-matched with the circulating strains. Even if they aren’t well-matched, the shot still offers protection.
In 2010-2011, physicians should try to build on last season’s success when seasonal flu vaccination rates topped 49 percent for the first time since 1989.
Health care worker vaccination rates hit 62 percent for seasonal flu vaccines, with physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and dentists reaching 76 percent, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The numbers for H1N1 flu vaccine, however, shows that there is still work to be done. Despite a strong campaign for health care workers to get vaccinated against H1N1 flu, that rate was only 37 percent. Meanwhile, only 35 percent of health care workers received both vaccines.
It will be even easier to get fully inoculated this year since there will only be one flu shot, instead of the separate seasonal and H1N1 shots that were given last year.