KUWAIT CITY, Nov 1: Informed health sources said that about 65,000 Kuwaitis and residents have been vaccinated against seasonal influenza and pneumococcal pneumonia, a month after the launch of the national vaccination campaign against winter diseases.

The sources said in a special statement to Al-Seyassah daily, that the campaign witnessed the vaccination of about 56,000 people against seasonal influenza, with an average of 8 to 10,000 people in each of the country’s six governorates, and the vaccination of about 9,000 against bacterial pneumonia, “Pneumococcal,” pointing to the trend to expand vaccination campaigns to include public institutions and sectors in various governorates, in coordination and cooperation with the relevant authorities.

The sources explained that the elderly, patients with heart and respiratory diseases, and health workers are the groups most in demand for vaccination, in various 50 preventive health centers distributed over all the regions and governorates of Kuwait, stressing the importance of vaccination for risk groups such as obesity, asthma, and chronic non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, heart, and cancer and others.

The sources reiterated the suitability of winter vaccinations for children aged six months and above, in order to reduce the severity of the disease and the number of days of transmission of infection and reduce the complications of infection with aggressive respiratory viruses.

By Marwa Al-Bahrawi

Al-Seyassah/Arab Times Staff