Vaccinations for the winter season will only be for Kuwaitis, to help manage the COVID-19 crisis, according to an announcement from the Ministry of Health on Saturday that<\/p>\n
The ministry pointed out that the vaccinations will offer protection for those with respiratory and chronic diseases, including civil service individuals, like police officers, military personals and front line workers, but didn\u2019t mention anything regarding nationality when the vaccination campaign was announced on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The head of the preventive health department at the Ministry of Health, Ibrahim Al Saleh, released a statement highlighting the importance of citizens and expats to take the necessary vaccinations.<\/p>\n
Following the new report, many people on social media questioned the Ministry\u2019s decision, pointing out that Kuwaitis make up 30 per cent of the population therefore making the decision counter effective as it will not provide immunity to the majority of the population.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Gulf News, Dr. Hamad Yaseen, assistant professor of medical genetics at Kuwait University, said, \u201cVaccines in general have two benefits, individual benefit and community benefit. In terms of the flu vaccine, we should target community protection to reduce the number of people infected so we can lessen the load on the healthcare system, while its coping with the second wave of the coronavirus,\u201d In its fifth year, the winter campaign, which begins in early October and ends on December 31, is meant to contain the spread of infectious illnesses mainly the seasonal influenza, otherwise known as the flu.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Health has already supplied 150,000 doses of the flu shot across 34 preventive centers and are looking to increase the total amount of doses to 400,000.<\/p>\n
\u201c400,000 doses for a population of 4.3 million is limited, therefore we should target people with chronic health conditions and older people,\u201d Dr. Yaseen pointed out.<\/p>\n
Flu shot & the pandemic<\/strong><\/p>\n Many studies and scientists have pointed out that the flu vaccine protects people from the seasonal influenza, not COVID-19, and it is imperative that one avoids getting the flu especially this winter.<\/p>\n According to the Centre for Disease Prevention (CDC), it is possible to have the flu and COVID-19 at the same time.<\/p>\n In addition, they both share similar symptoms which can make it hard to tell the difference between both diseases solely based on the symptoms.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is likely that many people will confuse the symptoms of the flu and the coronavirus, therefore they will seek medical attention putting an extra load on hospital beds and testing laboratories,\u201d Dr. Yaseen said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Vaccinations for the winter season will only be for Kuwaitis, to help manage the COVID-19 crisis, according to an announcement from the Ministry of Health on Saturday that The ministry pointed out that the vaccinations will offer protection for those with respiratory and chronic diseases, including civil service individuals, like police officers, military personals and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58555,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-health"],"yoast_head":"\n