Dr Zac Turner: ‘Should my daughter get the flu vaccine even though she’s only 20?’

Guidelines recommend that we get a flu vaccine every year. Photo / Supplied

Welcome to Ask Doctor Zac, a weekly column from news.com.au. This week, Dr Zac Turner explains why flu vaccines are so important.

Question: Hi Dr Zac, How do I convince my 20-year-old daughter to get the flu jab? She is adamant she doesn’t need it, and that the flu isn’t that serious. I don’t believe she fully grasps how serious the flu is as I often hear her say it is like the common cold.

My 90-year-old dad visits us for extended periods of time and I fear having him around my unvaccinated daughter. How can I convince my daughter to consider getting the vaccine?

– Karina, 46, Sydney

Answer: Great question Karin. I recommend you ask your daughter to express all her doubts about the flu vaccine to her local GP – they will inform her of the risks of not being vaccinated, especially with her grandfather, and can help encourage her to get vaccinated for the flu this winter. In the meantime, I will answer your question with all the information I know as a trusted medical practitioner.

Let me state it simply: anyone can get sick with the flu. Even if you consider yourself the healthiest person alive, you can still get sick. Period. So, it’s really important that we understand the risks and impact of the disease, so we can share information with others who are less informed.

There are some people at a higher risk of developing serious complications including:

• People aged 65 years and older

• People with underlying medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease or other chronic conditions

• Pregnant people

• Children under 5 years old

Pregnant women are among those at a higher risk of developing serious complications. Photo / Getty

Most young people fail to recognise the severity of the flu and ignore the benefits of getting the jab or at least showing some caution or disease spread prevention strategies. This is easy to understand as they have been largely unaffected by environmental health issues, other than sacrificing their freedoms during the pandemic.

I believe the questions that come from younger generations about why we practise health in a certain way are integral. Health starts at home and hopefully through conversation we can build an understanding of immunity, and through education and intentional application we can help the most vulnerable in our community.

Actively questioning and improving our health practices is great, but often we throw people into certain ‘camps’ the moment we do. This causes the people to become polarised and sometimes aggressive in their approach.

I was involved in humanitarian aid in the Congo 22 years ago, regularly providing lifesaving protection. All the young children in the village would cry when they saw me because I was that tall guy who gave everyone needles, but their parents allowed me to help because I was giving them life saving vaccines such as polio, tuberculosis, whooping cough and more that we just take for granted and have in our infancy.

Even if you consider yourself the healthiest person alive, you can still get sick. Photo / Getty

I always encourage patients to have a chat with me about whether they should have a vaccine or not. I can share with them my experience as I have had all the vaccines that I could possibly need and I understand how they work.

I find it strange that without question we all get the whooping cough vaccination if we spend time near children, but for some reason struggle to see the value of the flu vaccine. It is important to get the vaccine to protect ourselves, and those around us.

Let’s start with the basics, and then delve into the vaccine

The flu, or influenza, is a highly contagious respiratory illness caused by either influenza virus A, B, C or D. All of these viruses have multiple strains. They are not the same as the common cold, and people need to recognise this.

Flu can cause mild to severe illness, and sadly each year it leads to deaths in the community.

Symptoms can be quite quick to come on, and may include:

• Fever, or feeling feverish/chills

• Cough

• Sore throat

• Runny or stuffy nose

• Muscle or body aches

• Headache

• Fatigue

Some people may have vomiting or diarrhoea, though this is more common in children than adults.

The influenza virus is transmitted through our throats in close contact, and it can also be spread by our hands through the touching of our noses and mouths, as well as coughing and sneezing.

Most people who get the flu will fully recover in around two weeks, but people like your 90-year-old father can develop serious complications such as sinus/ear infections, pneumonia, inflammation of the heart, encephalitis and multi-organ failure, which may require hospitalisation. In some patients these complications can result in death.

You can catch the flu at any time of the year, but disease rates typically peak around winter; confirmed cases are definitely picking up right now.

It’s really important that we understand the risks and impact of the flu. Photo / Supplied

Now let’s discuss why vaccination is important

I’ve discussed this before in my columns about Covid-19; vaccines work by triggering an immune response to a bacteria or virus so that our bodies are already protected when we encounter it. We are effectively training or preparing our immune system so that if we are exposed to flu, we are less likely to get sick. It’s a preventative measure to mitigate risk.

Our immunisation guidelines recommend that we get a flu vaccine every year. This is because the influenza virus is constantly evolving. Our brilliant immunologists, biomedical engineers and scientists work around the clock to make sure we are on top of the mutations in our vaccines.

There are a number of benefits to getting the flu vaccine, and this is the perfect opportunity to share them with your daughter! Ask her to please read the following:

Flu vaccination can keep you from getting sick as well as passing it on to others

The flu jab prevents millions of notifications and flu-related doctor’s visits each year. Not only is this great for us, it’s also great for the strained medical system.

If you want it in raw numbers, in 2019-2020 overseas it prevented an estimated 7.5 million influenza illnesses, 3.7 million influenza related medical visits, 105,000 hospitalisations and 6,300 influenza-associated deaths. And remember, it helps us protect those important to us that are at a higher risk of complications.

How would you feel if you caught it and passed it on to your frail grandfather?

Flu vaccination has been shown to reduce severity of illness

An entire library could be filled with studies that support the theory that the flu vaccine prevents serious complications of the virus. The most recent Australian study from the National Influenza Surveillance Committee has shown that the vaccine reduced the risk of flu-related hospitalisation for adults by roughly 50 per cent.

Annual flu vaccination is recommended for everyone over the age of six months and is only contraindicated for those who have known life-threatening allergies to a previous dose of the vaccine.

Dr Zac Turner has a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Sydney. He is both a medical practitioner and a co-owner of telehealth service, Concierge Doctors. He was also a registered nurse and is also a qualified and experienced biomedical scientist along with being a PhD Candidate in Biomedical Engineering