(To her children): Jackson and Chase, come and get your lunch. Now sit up at the table
with Chase. Good boy.
Emi Hall's son, Jackson, is still recovering after weeks fighting off a devastating bout
of flu.
(to children): Is that good? Is that yummy?
I went to get him dressed for school run in the morning, and realised he had a bad rash
from neck to toe and took him to the GP.
I went into panic mode and definitely thought it was something more than a reaction or a
viral infection.
I definitely felt like there was something more going on with him.
Over a fortnight, his condition deteriorated.
Laying on the couch, lethargic, not moving but it got worse to the point where he wouldn't
even eat. He was barely drinking.
He had temperatures of 39.3. I am like, do I ring an ambulance or not? Like, you don't know.
Jackson was admitted to hospital where he had a flu test.
And it came back roughly, I don't know, 12 hours later, and they come in and told us
he influenza A.
I honestly didn't even give it a thought that it could be this bad. It's pretty serious.
Influenza has the potential to be very dangerous.
I think compared to some issues such as Ebola, or a new strain of flu, such as swine flu,
people have become desensitised because it's there every year but it is certainly a serious
infection.
Notifications for influenza have skyrocketed this year hitting almost 58,000 cases so far.
That dwarfs the number of notifications normally received by this time of year.
Already 139 people have died, including a three-year-old in Victoria, and a 15-year-old
girl in Adelaide.
It has been a very bad year although, technically, we're still not in the flu season.
Dr Sanjaya Senanayake is one of Australia's leading infectious disease experts.
This could go two ways. We've had so many cases through this part of the year, it might
actually be a milder winter with regard to flu.
On the other hand however, it might continue to escalate.
We really don't know.
Depending on their age, Australians are offered three different vaccinations which reduce
the effect of the flu virus.
There are three vaccines, one for very little people, six months to three years, with a
lower dose of vaccine, so that's recommended for those very young age group.
Then, for older people over 65, there is what we call a trivalent vaccine which has got
a higher dose in it, which is on the basis that as people get older, their immune response
to most things including vaccines may not be as good as when they were younger so we've
got a higher dose in those vaccines.
And for the rest of the population, there's the standard quadrivalent vaccine with two
strains of A influenza and B influenza.
Aged care facilities like the one that Star Dang runs in Sydney's north require all staff
and residents to get the flu vaccine.
Thankfully, we haven't had an outbreak in over 10 years now and it is because we have
very strict management protocols for outbreaks.
So hand hygiene, why is that so critical - just cleaning your hands properly?
It is important because our staff here are touching the residents on a daily basis and
they are the portal of infection and they can potentially spread this across to other
residents.
If we do identify any residents who are at potential risk, then we would try and restrict movement.
Months ahead of the flu season, the World Health Organization decides which strain to
put into the millions of vaccines that Australia receives.
It takes a while for the vaccines to be manufactured in large numbers. So really, we have to try
and do it in as timely and as efficient a manner as possible.
So the World Health Organization thinks that's the best time to get together to start talking
about the vaccine composition.
At another aged care facility, Holy Family Services Home in Western Sydney, they're part
of a rapid flu test trial.
Instead of two days, this public health unit team can provide a result in just half an hour,
potentially stopping an outbreak in its tracks.
I hear you have come down with some flu-like symptoms?
Yes.
So what we are going to do is we're going to do a swab.
So what this machine is allowing us to do, is within 30 minutes, while the team are at
the facility, they can say is this flu A or B.
And therefore those discussions between the families, the patient and their GPs, can occur
quite quickly.
The diagnosis is quicker, therefore what medications they are given are quicker and potentially
more effective?
Exactly.
Despite having vaccinations, 11 residents got the flu - they've survived.
If we're able to minimise the complications of flu, we're preventing deaths and we don't
want residents to go to hospital. We want them to be at their home, this is their home.
We want them to be with their family and their friends.
You can't predict anything with flu.
We don't know whether it will be an early season that will peak, and we don't quite
know what the size of the season by the end of it will be.
This flu this year is no more virulent or nasty than normal, but it is just that it
started a lot earlier than normal.
Health authorities are preparing for the coming months.
There is no super vaccine. There are lots of different varieties of vaccines - some
have some value over others and we're very keen to look at all options to improve our
vaccine effectiveness in this country.
The Federal Health Department says it's already released 12 million doses of vaccine.
Seven million will be given free to anyone aged over 65 or under five, to pregnant women
and indigenous people.
The Health Minister has told 7.30 he's written to vaccine manufacturers, requesting they
produce additional flu vaccines to meet unprecedented market demand which the Government expects
will be available in the coming weeks.
I had had it when I was pregnant with Jackson in 2013, and I never had it again because
I just thought, oh, it's a flu injection, like what can it do? What would it prevent?
But now I'm kicking myself and I believe that it's something that I should have got done
sooner - for the both of us.
Maybe he wouldn't have got as bad as what he has got to.