BREATH Flu Vaccination Event - The winner has been announced

At the end of 2018, the BREATH office called for participation in the MHH's annual flu vaccination program. Among all BREATH employees, who reported their vaccination to the BREATH team, a surprise package was raffled off.

The genuine influenza is a serious, sometimes life-threatening disease. The flu season 2017/2018 was unusually severe and kept many BREATH employees busy, in particular from the department of pneumology. Between the end of December 2017 and the beginning of April 2018, 333,567 people verifiably have been ill with influenza in Germany. At least 1,518 people died of the flu that year.

According to the Robert Koch Institute, in the flu season 2017/2018 a good 68 percent of influenza infections were caused by influenza B viruses from the Yamagata line. Therefore, people vaccinated with a trivalent vaccine against influenza had very little protection. Tetravalent vaccines, on the other hand, also protected against these influenza B viruses. This season, the tetravalent vaccine has been recommended by the Standing Vaccination Commission and the Robert Koch Institute, also as a result of the sustained efforts of Prof. Tobias Welte, Clinic Director of Pneumology at MHH and Director at BREATH, the Hanoverian site of the German Center for Lung Research.

The MHH offers its employees a flu vaccine free of charge every year. The employees of the MHH were apparently especially aware of the topic this year, since already in December all vaccine doses available at the MHH were completely vaccinated. In fact, it is recommended to do the immunization as early as October or November, as the body will need 10 to 14 days to develop protection against influenza viruses.

Fittingly, the BREATH office called for a vaccination event last year. All BREATH employees who got vaccinated against the flu and presented their vaccination records to the BREATH team were given the opportunity to participate in a raffle for a BREATH surprise package. Meanwhile, an increase in influenza virus activity is observed across Europe. Currently besides influenza A (H3N2) mainly influenza A (H1N1) pdm09 viruses can be detected. Both the tri and tetravalent vaccines result in good protection this year as both contain these vaccine strains.

The winner of the BREATH surprise package is Dr. Christine Happle, Director of the Research Laboratory for Allergy and Tolerance at the Department of Pediatric Pulmonology, Allergology and Neonatology.

 

Text/Picture: BREATH / CD