100,000 flu shots on offer

They can be accessed for free on a walk-in basis at any one of 33 health clinics nationwide on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

While news of eight flu-deaths last year had prompted a rush of persons to get vaccinated, the Minister urged that this year people seek out vaccines now rather than wait on him to deliver dire news of flu deaths.

He said previously the Ministry had only issued 6,000 doses per year, but now he wants deaths to be as few as possible.

The old, the infant, and those with obesity or diabetes - have weak immune systems and so are particularly vulnerable to viral strains such as H1N1 and flu.

Otherwise Deyalsingh said some 463 pregnant women have the Zika virus, on the heels of the news of a second baby born with the Zika-linked condition of microcephaly, marked by an unusually small heads size and lifelong learning difficulties.

He said testing is no longer done on the general population but only pregnant women.

Pressed as to the anxiety of such mothers- to-be, he said that the Mount Hope screening facility will be ramped up on a national basis.

Doctors are offering active counselling and the Ministries of Social Development and Community Development has special funding on offer. Told that anxious women might take matters into their own hands, Deyalsingh did not volunteer/ proffer any comments one way or the other on the controversial option of abortion.

He did not possess data to say what percentage of Zika-infected pregnant women would usually give birth to babies with microcephaly, but said the riskiest time to be bitten is the first trimester, with less risk in the last trimester.

Despite Zika now existing in 70 countries, knowledge is slowly coming in. The best strategy is eradication of mosquito breeding-sites, noting that a hefty $3,500 fine under updated Yellow Fever Regulations brings a 90 percent compliance by residents within one week of a specific warning by public health inspectors.