WHO warns of flu outbreak

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is warning Australians to get flu vaccinations, as a potentially deadly strain of the disease is expected this winter.

WHO warns of flu outbreakThe World Health Organisation (WHO) is warning Australians to get flu vaccinations, as a potentially deadly strain of the disease is expected this winter.Only 35 per cent of Australians under 65, who are at high-risk of contracting the flu, are vaccinated against it.Up to 2000 Australians die from the flu each year, and the WHO says a particularly nasty strain is expected early this winter.The deputy director of WHO’s Influenza Centre, Alan Hampson, says elderly people are not the only ones at high risk.”Of the three families of virus circulating in the human population, one of them is far worse than the other two and unfortunately that is the one that appears to be coming our way this year,” Mr Hampson said.”People with underlying diseases [such as] heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease, diabetes and things of this nature … if they do contract influenza they risk having their underlying condition becoming dramatically worse. “They may hospitalise them or even worse, in some cases it may even kill them.”(Source: ABC Health News, March 2004)