Why Vaccinate?
Avoiding flu can be hard, especially if you travel on crowded buses and trains or work in an office environment. Flu is highly infectious and is passed on through sneezing, coughing and hand contact, as well as indirectly from touching infected door handles, telephones etc.
Offering your staff a flu jab has a number of great benefits:
Cost effectiveness
Save money by decreasing employee absenteeism and maintaining productivity in your workforce.
Employee well being
Offering your workforce vaccinations sends out the message that you are committed to their health both in work and at home.
Convenient
Our mobile service means that experienced and qualified nurses come to your site at a time that suits you.
Promoting a healthier work place
Vaccination is the best prevention against the flu virus.
Social responsibility
Vaccinating your workforce offers them protection against flu and plays a part in helping to protect their families and the wider community.
How does the flu vaccine work?
The vaccine is very safe and effective. It protects against the viral strains advised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as being the most likely to attack the UK.
The vaccine stimulates your body to make antibodies (chemicals in the blood) that protect against the virus strains. Protection becomes effective about a week after receiving the vaccine. Current vaccines give 70-90% protection against flu. For those who may still get flu, the illness is often milder.
Are there any side effects?
Having a flu jab is safe. Experience drawn from approximately 300 million annual doses worldwide shows that it is extremely uncommon to suffer serious side effects. Occasionally
there may be some minor discomfort around the injection site and, as with all vaccines, a slight temperature or headache may be experienced 24 hours after receiving the vaccine.
Who should not be vaccinated?
The vaccine is suitable for almost everyone, with a few exceptions. You should not be vaccinated if you:
- have had an allergic reaction to a previous flu vaccine,
- have a serious allergy to eggs,
- are allergic to the medicines neomycin or gentamicin,
Our nurses will always check to make sure it is safe to vaccinate.
If you have any questions regarding the flu vaccination please contact our Flu Fighters team.
What is Flu?
Flu is a respiratory illness caused by the infectious influenza virus. The illness lasts about a week and affects the nose, throat and lungs. Symptoms include headache, high fever, chills, sore throat, aching joints and a dry cough.
There are three main strains of influenza virus - A,B and C and within these strains the virus is constantly changing. Each year the virus is slightly different, its severity is unpredictable. Some flu seasons are worse than others. It depends on the type of flu virus going around and the number of people who are susceptible to it each winter.
Thankfully for the majority of people influenza is not a serious illness and they recover fully within one or two weeks. However, in some people complications develop leading to more serious illnesses.
All 'at risk' groups are eligible to receive free flu jabs from the National Health Service. The Department of Health runs an annual campaign to encourage as many of these people as possible to have a jab. Our Flu Fighters campaign helps you complement this programme by offering vaccinations to people through their workplace.
To book call 0845 521 0030 and let Flu Fighters help defend your organisation.
