{"id":30905,"date":"2026-04-06T11:46:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T09:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=30905"},"modified":"2026-04-06T11:46:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T09:46:05","slug":"early-flu-season-prompts-urgent-vaccine-call","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/early-flu-season-prompts-urgent-vaccine-call\/","title":{"rendered":"Early flu season prompts urgent vaccine call"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-olk-copy-source=\"MessageBody\">The South African (SA) National Institute for Communicable Diseases says the 2026 flu season has arrived earlier usual.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It says the official start of the season around March 9th, has raised concerns about a potential surge in cases.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Experts are now urging the public not to delay getting vaccinated.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Head of the Centre for Respiratory Diseases at Wits University, Cheryl Cohen, says the unusual thing this year is that the influenza season has already started, which is quite early.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Typically, the flu season is in winter, usually after the Easter holidays.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cThis year, however, it has begun earlier than usual. People who want to get their flu shot should do so as soon as possible to ensure they are protected, as we expect influenza levels to increase over the next few weeks,\u201d adds Cohen.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":30896,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-30905","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"The 2026 flu season has arrived earlier usual","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30907,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30905\/revisions\/30907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=30905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}