The health service is devising regional plans to increase uptake of the flu and RSV vaccines among areas and cohorts of society that traditionally decline the jab, a senior health official has said.
The prevalence of respiratory illnesses is beginning to increase across the State, according to the latest figures from the infectious disease watchdog, which described the last flu season as “severe and prolonged”, and “more intense” than previous years.
Data from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) show there were 119 cases of the flu in the week ending October 18th, up from 88 the previous week. There were 17 hospitalisations, but none of these required intensive care. There was also one death.
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is currently at “low levels”, the HPSC said, but is increasing – rising from 17 cases to 40 in the week ending October 18th.
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Dr Colm Henry, chief clinical officer at the Health Service Executive (HSE), said last year’s flu season was “very significant”, largely attributing this to the dominant variant.
“The variant of flu we had was one we hadn’t seen in some years – AH1N1," he said. “We probably hadn’t seen it since 2018 or 2019. Sometimes with that gap you see a greater impact. It’s too early for us to say yet what the flu pattern, dominant variant will be yet.”
Dr Henry said the severity of flu season is largely driven by the dominant variant-type. He added: “We can’t control the flu subtype or the way it transmits, but we can control the vaccine uptake.”
Consequently, he said work is ongoing to encourage people to take up the vaccine, particularly among areas that are “traditionally more hard to reach”.
“That’s something our public health teams analyse in each of the regions,” he said. “They’re devising regional plans [and] identifying areas of low uptake – identifying groups where there’s low uptake and focusing resources and maximising uptake in those groups and those areas."
It is “too early to say” whether levels of vaccination among healthcare workers has increased, he said, after they recorded their lowest level of uptake in seven years last winter.
However, he suggested a change in advice could have an impact on uptake. The flu vaccine is being indicated among this cohort, as opposed to workers being asked to get both flu and covid jabs.
Dr Henry described the rollout of RSV vaccine to newborn babies in hospital last year as a “very positive story”, with 85 per cent uptake.
This year, the health service has expanded the vaccine programme to babies aged up to six months as of September 1st.
“Extending it into the community is always more challenging because it’s easier to give a vaccine when someone is in a hospital than it is when you ask them to come back into a healthcare setting.”
Dr Henry said current uptake rate is 45 per cent, which the HSE is happy with, but they would like it to be higher.
“We may be providing another opportunity for these vaccines in November,” he added.
