The Ministry of Health and Prevention, MoHAP, has launched its campaign targeting the awareness of seasonal flu which comes under the themes of ‘’Immunise yourself, Protect your community”.

The National Seasonal Flu Awareness Campaign, that is being organised in coordination with Abu Dhabi Public Health Centre(ADPHC), will last till the end of January 2021. Along with ADPHC, Abu Dhabi Health Services, SEHA and Dubai Health Authority(DHA) have also made the campaign possible with an aim to stress and highlight the importance of getting vaccinated against seasonal flu and make available best health practices for the health workers that helps them fight the risks of influenza virus.

Details were given during a press conference conducted on Monday at the InterContinental Dubai-Festival City which saw 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.

The campaign has been set up at a time when COVID-19 is at its peak in order to raise awareness about the nature of the disease and explain to the community the causes and symptoms of the virus. The lectures and courses are tailor made that will help people understand the preventive measures that can be taken to combat such virus’. Through this campaign, the authorities also aim to make the community understand of the vaccine usage.

"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,” said Dr. Al-Rand.

Dr. Sallam also talked about the campaign and said that vaccines are provided by SEHA along with MoHAP and DHA to the hospitals and health centres which are transported with utmost safety and precautions. He further added that the company gets its workers vaccinated to avoid seasonal influenza.

Dr. Al Hosani applauded the efforts of the Department of Communicable Diseases and said that it spared no efforts in making sure that the annual campaign is conducted with full attention. 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, concluded Hosani.

Apart from them Dr. Al Marzouqi and Al Awadhi also stressed on the information that should be propagated about seasonal influenza. Marzouqi for example said that seasonal influenza causes about 3 to 5 million severe illnesses and about 250,000 to 500,000 deaths every year. Dr. Al Awadhi, on the other hand, emphasised on the role of vaccines in curbing the virus. He said that most vulnerable groups increased the complications that this vaccine will help tackle.

WAM