The Flu and You
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How can you protect yourself and your family from the flu?
October and November are the best months to get your flu vaccine, but people with high risk conditions (people over age 65, or children and adults with chronic heart or lung disease, diabetes, anaemia, cancer, immune suppression, HIV or kidney disease) are still encouraged to get their flu vaccine as long as there continues to be flu in the province.
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What else
can you do?
Whether or not you receive the vaccine, it is important to take other
steps to avoid getting the flu or giving it to others.
- Wash your hands
often.
- Cover your
mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze.
- Use tissues
if you are coughing or sneezing, and throw all used tissues in the
garbage.
- If you have
flu symptoms, stay home from work or school, and don't visit hospitals,
nursing homes, or people in the high risk group listed above. What
may be a minor illness for you could be a very serious one for someone
else.
Is there
any special advice for parents?
If your children have chronic illnesses like those listed above, they
should be immunized. Immunization should not take place with babies
under 6 months of age or with children who have severe (i.e. anaphylactic)
egg allergies. For all other children the vaccine is safe. The flu vaccine is offered free of charge to babies age 6 to 23 months. Children under the age of two years are among the most likely to get very sick from the flu and have the same risk of being hospitalized because of influenza, as seniors.
| Regular hand washing, covering coughs and sneezes and tissue use are just as important for children as they are for adults. If your child develops cold or flu symptoms, they may not feel like eating, but they will benefit from drinking a lot of fluids, and getting rest. Symptoms can be treated with over-the-counter medications, but children with flu-like symptoms should never take medications containing ASA due to the risk of Reye’s Symdrome. |
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Children with flu-like symptoms should be kept home from daycare,
school and other activities to avoid spreading the illness to others.
How do
I know if and when my child needs medical attention?
See our fact sheet Flu Information for
Parents for information on caring for children with flu symptoms
- including symptoms that indicate that your child needs medical care.
Where
can you find other flu information?
To see the detailed status of the flu in Nova Scotia, visit Nova
Scotia’s FluWatch.
To see where the
flu is active in Canada, visit Health
Canada’s FluWatch. FluWatch produces weekly surveillance
reports from October to May in collaboration with provincial and territorial
ministries of health, participating laboratories, the College of Family
Physicians of Canada and sentinel doctors.
The National Advisory
Committee on Immunization (NACI) provides ongoing and timely medical,
scientific, and public health advice relating to immunization to Health
Canada, provinces and territories. Read the NACI
Statement on Influenza Vaccination for the 2003-2004 Season.
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