Doctors recommend flu shots as they reduce the chances of getting flu. It’s highly effective especially in these testing times.

Dr Mukesh Budhawani, general Physician, Apollo Clinic said, Flu is dangerous to you and your family’s health as high-risk individuals like infants, pregnant women, adults 65 and older, and those with chronic conditions.”

He added, “Getting the flu vaccine will reduce the seriousness and length of illness and even risk for a flu-related hospitalisation and death. The flu shot can protect you and your loved ones against serious complications. It can impact a healthy individual’s health leading to pneumonia.”

He further stated, “Taking a flu shot can minimise the risk for a co-infection because it is possible to catch both the flu and Covid-19 simultaneously.”

Looks like Covid-19 is gonna stay for a little while. According to the latest Covid-19 bulletin of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Sunday, India reported 14,146 new cases in the last 24 hours.

It was 11.5 per cent lower than what the country had witnessed a day before. With this, the total Covid caseload in India increased to 3,40,67,719.

The top five states that registered maximum new Covid-19 cases were Kerala with 7,955 cases, followed by Maharashtra with 1,553 cases, Tamil Nadu with 1,233 cases, Mizoram with 948 cases and West Bengal with 443 cases.

Deaths due to tuberculosis have increased for the first time in over a decade reversing years of global progress, the World Health Organization said on Thursday citing the 2021 Global TB report. The UN health agency said in its annual report that progress towards TB milestones has been hit hard by the ongoing coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic. Not only the number of people dying of tuberculosis increased last year, but also far fewer people were diagnosed and treated for infectious bacterial disease.

According to the report, tuberculosis was second only to Covid-19 as a leading cause of death from a single infectious agent. The impact of disruptions caused by the pandemic on new TB cases and related deaths could be “much worse” in 2021 and 2022, suggest modelling projections.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement that the Global TB report confirms “our fears that the disruption of essential health services due to the pandemic could start to unravel years of progress against tuberculosis.”

“This is alarming news that must serve as a global wake-up call to the urgent need for investments and innovation to close the gaps in diagnosis, treatment and care for the millions of people affected by this ancient but preventable and treatable disease,” Tedros added.

The UN health agency estimates that about 4.1 million people currently suffering from TB have either went undiagnosed or have not officially reported to national authorities, up by 1.2 million from 2019. India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and China have contributed the most to the global reductions in TB notifications between 2019 and 2020.

Despite some success stories from some countries and regions, global TB targets are “mostly off-track”, according to the report.

“The immediate priority is to restore access to and provision of essential TB services such that levels of TB case detection and treatment can recover to at least 2019 levels,” the report concluded.