Joris Bartstra, doctor and journalist, answers readers’ questions. This time the question: my doctor advises me to get a flu shot. I am a healthy seventies; is it really necessary? I have been vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Joris Bartstra, journalist with a medical degree.
I do not know the motive of your GP. The flu vaccine is the most controversial of all vaccines. The degree of protection varies every year, but is on average 50 percent. Every year about 10 percent of the Dutch get the flu. By taking the jab, you reduce your chance to 5 percent. As a bonus, the chance of becoming seriously ill or dying – if you do get the flu – is also reduced. Critical voices say that the general practitioner easily earns his winter sports holiday with the flu shot and that this may be taken into account in the advice. Yet it is good for healthcare and society as a whole if as few people as possible get the flu, because the complaints resemble those of Covid. But then you would be doing it for society, and I still don’t hear anyone arguing for vaccinating the entire population against the flu.
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