 Hello, I'm Dr. Ranjit of the internal medicine department at Manipal Hospital and I focus on infectious diseases. So today being a part of World Immunization Week, I would like to speak about influenza vaccination. So influenza or the flu is a common viral disease which has a potential to spread as large outbreaks in communities. It's quite a common disease which affects people of all age groups and occurs in all parts of the world. The spectrum of this disease varies from mind-upper respiratory tract infection to severe life-threatening pneumonia with respiratory failure. Due to these reasons, vaccination against influenza has been recommended for all persons who are above the age of six months. This vaccination is especially beneficial for people who suffer from cardiac disease, for asthmatics, diabetics, those who have stroke and malignant disease. So the influenza vaccine may be a live attenuated vaccine or a recombinant vaccine and the vaccine may be a trivalent or one that contains three components which protects against three strains of the virus or a quadrivalent vaccine which contains four components which protects against four strains of the virus. These are the vaccines which protect and save the patient from the dreaded H1N1 strain or the swine flu. So this vaccination is usually administered as an intramuscular injection. It is quite safe and effective. Recently, there is a new live attenuated version of this vaccine which is administered as a nasal spray. The benefit of this vaccination is that it not only protects the individual but also is beneficial in providing protection to the entire community that is to the contacts of a person who may potentially acquire this infection. Therefore, it is highly recommended that the vaccination be carried out yearly especially during the winter months when the outbreaks tend to occur. Generally, the outbreaks of influenza tends to occur in the winter months of the year around October. So it is advisable for people to get their yearly vaccination done prior to the traditional outbreak of the virus. It takes about 14 days for the patient to become adequately immune following a vaccination. This vaccination is especially beneficial for people who are at greater risk of the complications of influenza such as those who already have respiratory disease, those who are elderly that is in the geriatric age group and also for persons suffering from malignancies, advanced cardiac disease, renal disease, etc. In conclusion, the benefits of yearly vaccination for influenza are prevention and mitigation of the disease in the individual, prevention of outbreaks in the community and also reducing the complications and severe outcomes in persons who have pre-existing diseases.