Protecting Our Health

Health protection aims to protect people from infectious and environmental hazards, for example through  vaccination, immunisation, and screening.

It also includes communicable disease surveillance and control, the prevention and management of individual incidents or cases of communicable disease or environmental threats to health, dealing with communicable disease outbreaks or major environmental emergencies.

Incidence is a measure of the number of new cases of a disease (or other health outcome of interest) that develops in a population at risk during a specified time period. It is used to describe how quickly the disease occurs in the population and is therefore used to identify increasing transmission and influence decision making about what interventions are required to slow this down.

Vaccination coverage is the best indicator of the level of protection a population will have against vaccine preventable communicable diseases.

Immunisation is one of the most effective healthcare interventions available and vaccines can prevent illness and hospital admissions among groups of people at highest risk.

Influenza (also known as Flu) is a highly infections viral illness spread by droplet infection. The flu vaccination is offered to people who are at greater risk of developing serious complications if they catch flu. Increasing the uptake of flu vaccine among high risk groups should contribute to easing winter pressure on primary care services and hospital admissions. Coverage is closely related to levels of disease. Monitoring coverage identifies possible drops in immunity before levels of disease rise.

The European Region of the World Health Organization (WHO) currently recommends that on a national basis at least 95% of children are immunised against diseases preventable by immunisation and targeted for elimination or control (specifically, diphtheria, neonatal tetanus, pertussis, polio, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), Hepatitis B, measles, mumps and congenital rubella1).

“Parent: Why does it matter to you? Because you want to stay healthy?

Child: Yes I want to stay healthy

Child: I don’t like injections

Parent: What do they need to do? Do they need to give you a lolly if you get an injection

Child: No

Parent: Maybe a sticker?

Child: Yeah a sticker”

Coming Soon…