- Flu can be deeply unpleasant and for vulnerable patients or colleagues with pre-existing conditions, complications can become life-threatening, causing pneumonia and even sepsis. Last year 8,000 deaths were linked to the flu.
- Symptoms include a sudden onset of fever, an aching body, and feeling tired and exhausted. Often people who have the flu will not even be able to get out of bed. Other symptoms can be a sore throat, cough, headache, difficulty sleeping, loss of appetite, diarrhoea and/or nausea.
- Last year, over 1,000 patients were admitted to our hospitals with the flu. As a healthcare worker, your risk of catching flu is much higher, and 50% of infections have no symptoms, so you could be spreading it without knowing it.
- If you catch flu, stay at home, drink plenty of fluids, rest, sleep, keep warm and take paracetamol or ibuprofen to lower your temperature and manage aches and pains – always read the label of any medication you take.
- The flu vaccine reduced hospital admission by between 90,000 and 120,000 last year. It works.
- Flu evolves constantly, so we need to have the flu jab each year to have the best chance of staying protected.
Flu vaccine ingredients
Name of vaccine: Supemtek Trivalent Influenza Vaccine recombinant (TIVr) prepared in cell culture, solution for injection in pre-filled syringe.
There is only one vaccine in use at University Hospitals Birmingham this year.
The vaccine is cell cultured and therefore it is suitable for people with an egg allergy/intolerance. The vaccine contains
| Strain | Strain identifier | Amount of influenza virus haemagglutinin (HA) protein |
|---|---|---|
| A/Wisconsin/67/2022 (H1N1)pdm09-like | A/West Virginia/30/2022 | 45 micrograms HA |
| A/Darwin/6/2021 (H3N2)-like | A/Darwin/6/2021 | 45 micrograms HA |
| B/Austria/1359417/2021-like | B/Austria/1359417/2021 | 45 micrograms HA |
List of excipients: Polysorbate 20 (E432), Sodium chloride, Sodium phosphate monobasic, Sodium phosphate dibasic, Water for injections.
Detailed product information for the vaccine is available on the Electronic Medicines Compendium (eMC).