• an A/Michigan/45/2015 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus
• an A/Singapore/INFIMH-16-0019/2016 (H3N2)-like virus; and
• a B/Phuket/3073/2013-like virus (from the influenza B/Yamagata lineage vaccine virus).

In addition, WHO has recommended that quadrivalent (4-strain) influenza vaccines containing two influenza B viruses, contain all of the above three viruses, and, a B/Brisbane/60/2008-like virus (from the influenza B/Victoria lineage vaccine virus).

Among circulating influenza B viruses, there are two distinct vaccine virus lineages. Quadrivalent influenza vaccines contain both a B/Victoria lineage vaccine virus, and, a B/Yamagata lineage vaccine virus.

The influenza vaccine viruses recommended for the 2018 southern hemisphere influenza season are different from those used for the 2017 southern hemisphere influenza season, and also, from those influenza vaccine viruses recommended by WHO for the northern hemisphere 2017-18 influenza season.

The WHO makes influenza vaccine strain recommendations in late September each year for the following influenza vaccine season in the southern hemisphere.
The vast majority of influenza vaccines produced globally use egg-based manufacturing processes. These manufacturing processes often require 6 to 8 months in order to approve, and produce, the hundreds of millions of influenza vaccine doses available for the southern hemisphere influenza season each year.

For further detail, you can click on the link to the WHO report (dated 28 September 2017) that is available from: http://www.who.int/influenza/vaccines/virus/recommendations/2018_south/en/

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Data from the Southern Hemisphere Influenza and Vaccine Effectiveness Research and Surveillance (SHIVERS) study, which analysed 2,500 adults and children randomly selected from general practices in Auckland show that 1 in 5 people in New Zealand – and 1 in 3 Kiwis under 19 – were infected with influenza in 2016.

However, the SHIVERS study indicates that not everyone with the flu displays flu symptoms, or, even feels unwell enough to visit their GP. These infected individuals can still pass the flu on to others that they are in contact with through touch – or in the air – to those individuals likely to get sicker than themselves such as; infants, pregnant women, the elderly, and, people with pre-existing medical conditions.

In the USA, flu’s impact is calculated at between 0.24% to 0.80% of GDP. It wasn’t clear in the SHIVERS study what cost flu was having on NZ’s employers, who could lose infected workers for 5 to 10 days. Some estimates in NZ suggest that sickness costs NZ businesses around 3% of their total salary and wage bill.

Those individuals not protected from the flu by vaccination, but who still considered themselves fit and healthy, were just as likely to be infected with the flu.

For further detail, please click on the link to The NZ Herald article (dated 21 September 2016).

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In addition, WHO has recommended that quadrivalent influenza vaccines containing two influenza B viruses, contain all of the above three viruses, and, a B/Phuket/3073/2013-like virus (from the influenza B/Yamagata lineage vaccine virus).

Among circulating influenza B viruses, there are two distinct lineages. Quadrivalent influenza vaccines contain both a B/Victoria lineage vaccine virus, and, a B/Yamagata lineage vaccine virus.

The influenza vaccine viruses recommended for the 2017 southern hemisphere influenza season are different from those used for the 2016 southern hemisphere influenza season, and also, from those influenza vaccine viruses recommended by WHO for the northern hemisphere 2016-17 influenza season.

The influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 vaccine virus recommended for the 2017 southern hemisphere influenza season has been updated compared with the viruses recommended for the 2016 southern hemisphere and those recommended for the northern hemisphere 2016-17 influenza seasons.

The WHO makes influenza vaccine strain recommendations in late September each year for the following influenza vaccine season in the southern hemisphere.

The vast majority of influenza vaccines produced globally use egg-based manufacturing processes. These manufacturing processes often require 6 to 8 months in order to approve, and produce, the hundreds of millions of influenza vaccine doses available for the southern hemisphere influenza season each year.

For further detail, you can click on the link to the WHO report (dated 29 September 2016) that is available from: http://www.who.int/influenza/vaccines/virus/recommendations/2017_south/en/

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Zostavax™ is an injectable live virus vaccine for the prevention of shingles (herpes zoster) and postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), and, the reduction of acute and chronic zoster-associated pain. A single dose of Zostavax™ is administered to healthy adults aged 50 years and older.

Zostavax™ can be administered at the same time as most other vaccinations – including a flu vaccination. Zostavax™ vaccine is generally well tolerated. Shingles is a viral infection that is also called herpes zoster. The first symptom of shingles is often a burning, sharp pain, tingling, or, numbness in (or under) the skin followed a few days later by a red rash and blisters. Shingles painful, blistering rash may result in scarring. Shingles affects 1 in 3 people during their lives, affecting males and females equally.

The blisters and pain or irritation from shingles usually goes away in 3 to 5 weeks. However, if the shingles virus damages a nerve, a person may have pain, numbness, or, tingling for months – or even years – after the rash has healed. This chronic condition is most likely to occur in people over 50 years old.

Shingles can strike at any time, but it is impossible to predict who will get shingles, how painful shingles will be, or, how long the pain from shingles will last. Shingles affects the nerves – causing pain that may be prolonged and disabling.

Shingles is caused by the same virus as the chickenpox (varicella zoster) virus. After a bout of chickenpox – and after the chickenpox blisters heal – the chickenpox virus lies dormant in a person’s body in the nerve cells located near the person’s spinal cord for the rest of a person’s life. The chickenpox virus (varicella zoster) can reactivate at a later stage in a person’s life as shingles (herpes zoster). Therefore, anyone who has previously had chickenpox can go on later in life to develop shingles.

1 in 4 people experience complications from shingles. Pain that lasts after the rash has healed is called postherpetic neuralgia (PHN). PHN – with pain lasting for 90 days or more – is the most common complication of shingles. With older age, shingles pain can be significantly disabling. In one study, shingles pain was rated as being worse than renal colic and labour pain, and, PHN pain was rated as one of the most severe of the chronic pains.

For those unfortunate enough to contract shingles while still in the workforce, taking time off work to get over the debilitating pain shingles causes is reasonably common.

As shingles is caused by a virus and cannot be cured by antibiotics, shingles treatment focuses on relieving symptoms.

Contact Onsite Health now on 0800 357 357 to discuss whether Zostavax™ vaccinations are appropriate for your staff.

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Similar to the NZ Government’s Ministry of Health program to provide free influenza vaccinations for people at higher risk of developing complications if they get influenza, the Australian Government’s National Immunisation Program (NIP) “is designed to protect those population groups most at risk” of contracting influenza.

In a press release dated 6 November 2015 (and available at: https://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/health-mediarel-yr2015-ley133.htm, the Australian Government officially announced that they are moving to use quadrivalent (4-strain) influenza vaccine for their upcoming 2016 flu vaccination season’s NIP. This upgrade follows a record number of reported influenza cases in Australia in 2015.

Quadrivalent (4-strain) flu vaccine is designed to protect against 4 (as opposed to 3 in the trivalent flu vaccination) different flu viruses; two influenza A viruses and two influenza B viruses. Trivalent (3-strain) flu vaccine is designed to protect against 3 different flu viruses: two influenza A viruses and one influenza B virus. Therefore, the difference between the trivalent (3-strain) and quadrivalent (4-strain) flu vaccine is the addition of another (B strain) vaccine virus in the quadrivalent (4-strain) flu vaccine.

“Influenza B viruses are estimated to have accounted for about 62 per cent of flu cases in Australia in 2015” the 6 November press release quotes.

Flu subtyping data from the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza for NZ – from mid-November 2015 and available from: http://www.influenzacentre.org/surveillance_subtypes.htm – showed B strain influenza contributed 69% to the total number of influenza samples that were subtyped by WHO for the year to September 2015. Of these, the B/Victoria strain (which was not included in the trivalent flu vaccines for 2015) accounted for 24% of the samples analysed. Not all samples for the NZ season were analysed as the WHO data is based only on a sample number analysed at the WHO Collaborating Centre. However, WHO indicate this sample tends to be representative of the wider picture observed with samples analysed in other labs.

The good news for Onsite Health clients is that Onsite Health will once again be offering quadrivalent (4-strain) influenza vaccinations to clients in the upcoming 2016 flu vaccination season.

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– an A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus

– an A/Hong Kong/4801/2014 (H3N2)-like virus

– a B/Brisbane/60/2008-like virus.

In addition, WHO has recommended that quadrivalent influenza vaccines containing two influenza B viruses, contain all of the above three viruses, and, a B/Phuket/3073/2013-like virus.

The influenza vaccine viruses recommended for the 2016 southern hemisphere influenza season are different from those used for the 2015 southern hemisphere influenza season, and, from those influenza vaccine viruses recommended by WHO for the northern hemisphere 2015-2016 influenza season.

Two changes were recommended by WHO for the 2016 southern hemisphere influenza vaccine composition.
The first change is an update for the influenza A(H3N2) vaccine component. WHO determined that the egg-grown A/Hong Kong/4801/2014-like virus was antigenically and genetically more similar to the predominant, circulating 3C.2a viruses than the egg-propagated A/Switzerland virus that was recommended for the 2015 southern hemisphere influenza season.

For the second influenza vaccine component change, a B/Victoria lineage virus was selected for the influenza B component of the trivalent influenza vaccines. This change in the trivalent influenza vaccines B component was made to account for an increasing number of B/Victoria lineage viruses at the end of the northern hemisphere season, and, through the southern hemisphere season that were observed by the WHO in data collected from several regions between February 2015 to August 2015.

The WHO makes influenza vaccine strain recommendations each September for the following influenza vaccine season in the southern hemisphere. The vast majority of influenza vaccines produced globally use egg-based manufacturing processes. These manufacturing processes often require 6 to 8 months in order to approve, and produce, the hundreds of millions of influenza vaccine doses available for the southern hemisphere influenza season each year.

For further detail, you can click on the link to the WHO report (dated 24 September 2015) that is available from:

http://www.who.int/influenza/vaccines/virus/recommendations/2016_south/en/

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1) Seasonal trivalent (3-strain) flu vaccination containing the 3 vaccine strains expected to be in circulation in 2015 as recommended by the World Health Organisation. Trivalent (3-strain) flu vaccine will be available from Monday 23 March.

2) Seasonal quadrivalent (4-strain) flu vaccination contains additional protection against a 4th (type B) strain of influenza – in addition to the 3 vaccine strains contained in the trivalent flu vaccine. Experts expect that the addition of a 2nd strain of influenza B virus will help prevent the vast majority of type B influenza.

Quadrivalent flu vaccine is new to NZ in 2015, but has been successfully used in the United States for the past 2 seasons with nearly half of the number of flu vaccine doses projected to be available in the United States during the 2014/15 season being quadrivalent flu vaccine.

Quadrivalent flu vaccination is manufactured in the same way that trivalent flu vaccines have been made for many years. Overseas studies show that quadrivalent flu vaccines have a safety profile similar to trivalent flu vaccines, with similar (mostly mild) side effects.

Quadrivalent flu vaccine will be available from Monday 20 April.

You may be aware through various media coverage that the government programme for flu vaccine supply has been delayed until at least early April. Some occupational health programmes have also been affected by the delay in vaccine supply. This delay is due to a change in vaccine strains and the complex manufacturing process that will mean that most manufacturers will take longer than usual to deliver supply of flu vaccine to NZ (http://www.influenza.org.nz/news/new-influenza-vaccine-2015-media-release-nz-doctor).

However, Onsite Health’s trivalent (3-strain) flu vaccine supplier is not tied into the government supply contract enabling Onsite Health to begin providing trivalent (3-strain) flu vaccinations from Monday, 23rd March.

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So, what’s the best answer for the question? What are the benefits of getting a flu vaccination in the workplace?
The best answer lies within the fact that the CDC claims that every year the flu costs the U.S almost $10.4 billion in hospitalisations and outpatient visits just for adults alone. This does not take in to account the costs to business owners through lost production which also has a high figure.

So we know that the Flu can be destructive to our society so now it’s simply a matter of what you’re going to do about it. One thing you can do is host a flu vaccination clinic in your workplace. Its never been easier to do and the process is very cost effective in relation to what it can cost your business. You’ll be able to say that it was worth it when your staff are fit and well over winter. In fact, you’ll even be planning a clinic for each every year from this point on as the results come in. We have many clients who repeat the process annually and are thrilled with the results.

The benefits of the workplace injections are numerous and it is not just business owners that wonder about the results. Your employees are also wondering and for this reason, you should offer them incentives for getting their flu shot, such as providing it to them for free, offering refreshments or hosting a contest for the department that has the highest number of employees who get vaccinated.

Now that you have some answers to the question you’ll want to check out what our business can offer. We will send our friendly, experienced nurses into your business to give flu shots for 10 to (about) 100 people at once. We can also check your staff pulse, blood pressure and other vitals as an extra service if requested. This is valuable to your company so consider investing in it today

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Below is a photo we found online of Barack Obama getting the flu injection against the H1N1 virus (covered by our injection as detailed here)

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The influenza virus is constantly changing and new flu vaccines are usually formulated annually for each Southern hemisphere season. In most years, a new flu vaccine formulation with (at least) one new vaccine strain is developed to provide protection against the most predominant flu strains predicted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to circulate in the upcoming season. The World Health Organisation (WHO) devotes significant resources to maintaining global surveillance on dominant flu strains each year in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

Primarily the main season for flu is during winter which is why Onsite Health recommends annual flu vaccinations be administered in autumn – prior to the onset of winter.

At Onsite Health we recommend an annual flu injection for your staff if you wish to keep them protected from the flu – keeping your workforce healthy and at work. Getting a vaccination really is the best way to safeguard staff from catching the flu virus during the winter season.
To make your booking please contact us here

For more information on the Flu Vaccination and what is means for your business please click here

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