'The Flu Squad': Student pair on a mission to boost vaccination uptake

Two first-year Monash University students – one studying pharmacy, one medicine, both aged 19 – have found themselves at the forefront of a national campaign to increase the number of Australians getting influenza vaccinations.

Yannee Liu, a Bachelor of Pharmacy (Honours)/master’s student, and her best friend Katya Gvozdenko, a Bachelor of Medical Science and Doctor of Medicine student, did so well at a global influenza “hackathon”, or competition, that they’re now working closely with Australia’s Immunisation Coalition.

The IC’s head, Kim Sampson, has enlisted the pair (“The Flu Squad”) to help boost next year’s influenza prevention campaign.

He says Australians aged between 50 and 64 have “concerningly low” influenza vaccine uptake, despite it being free.

“The Flu Squad have laid out a plan to move away from the traditional story told every year – which relies heavily on statistics – towards a more personalised, engaging, myth-busting strategy using a combination of ambassadors, interactive content, an app, an annual Influenza Action Week, and an arts and film competition,” he says.

“We believe this has the potential to be a truly formidable program thanks to the energy, commitment and innovative thinking being driven by the team of students behind it,” says Sampson.

“Their generation has a lot to offer, and I believe listening to their ideas and tapping into this energy is what we need to help make flu vaccination an accepted part of Australian culture.”

Katya Gvozdenko

“Yannee and I met in Year 7, and throughout high school we were involved in a bunch of projects – everything from debating to sport.

“Yannee doesn’t know this, but when we met, a Year 7 teacher was explaining projects for the year, and everyone was entirely bored, but Yannee was the only one enthusiastic. Coming to a new school, I was excited and scared at the same time, but seeing her so excited mirrored my own feelings exactly. I thought, ‘That’s the person I want to work close to!’. It took a couple of years to do that, but that was the seed. She was bouncing out of her seat, and I was like, ‘That’s my future friend right there’.

---

Read more: The PhD students who stepped up in the COVID-19 testing breakthrough

---

“We have the same values and good teamwork. Our values are both around health, education and compassion. We’re both kids of migrants, and we were both new to high school structure, which bonded us.

“I was born in the United States, Yannee was born in China. We both moved to Australia at the age of four. We got used to getting involved in things together. It was natural for us to want to do the flu competition.

“I highly doubt we would have had the success of this without each other. Yannee and I have complementary strengths, and that’s what helps us function as a unit.

“I’m more the IT side – I’ve done a lot of IT projects – whereas Yannee is really good at writing things up. I suck at writing. I struggle with that a lot. But I’m good at editing, whereas that’s not Yannee’s strength. Writing presentations would drain me. It would take me 10 hours but it takes her two.

“We’re both socially conscious – we love doing things in the community, we do Clean up Australia Day together. It makes us fulfilled if we’re doing stuff for the wider community. It energises us.

“I think our mutual interest in science is a fundamental thing, but specifically flu, and also COVID. The awareness of the pandemic, the search for a vaccine, the effectiveness of a vaccine.

“We’re both socially conscious ... It makes us fulfilled if we’re doing stuff for the wider community. It energises us."

For Yannee and I, we thought even if a COVID vaccine exists, would people take it or not take it? And why? Same with influenza. Why don’t people take it? This was the real trigger for the project.

“In medicine, I really want to specialise in space medicine! I did a project at high school where we launched teeth to an international space station to study tooth decay in space. Ever since then I’ve wanted to be a space doctor studying people who go to space when they come back.”

Yannee Liu

“This project came up through the pharmacy faculty at Monash. My course director Tina Brock posted it. I saw the opportunity, as it was a team competition. I called Katya straight away and we signed up. Katya is my best friend.

“Originally this was just a competition that we were part of, but it’s gone above and beyond that now, and it’s about implementing that challenge we pitched to the judges. Now we actually have to bring that change to Australia. That’s the difficult part!

“We met in Year 7, properly met in Year 8, and then got close in Year 10 – we had lockers next to each other in Year 12, we both became school vice-captains, we were in the same teams and classes.

“Katya is like a sister to me. We’re very close. Sometimes we know what the other is thinking. We fill in each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We trust each other a lot; we’re very comfortable with each other.

“Katya gets a little more involved than me; she loves to get involved. I wasn’t like that in high school at first, I just wanted to do my studies. She encouraged me to get more involved.

“We had a really amazing science teacher in Year 8 who introduced us to science and biology and chemistry. She inspired us to pursue careers in STEM and healthcare. Mrs Harrigan was so involved in the subject – if we were learning about cells, she would do a dance. She loved science, and was dedicated to empowering more girls and women to go into science and STEM. She was a key point for me in terms of getting involved with science, and feeling empowered to do the subjects.

"Vaccination is so important, and if there’s any way to contribute, big or small, I wanted to be involved and offer solutions."

“In year 12 I came to the Monash campus in Parkville for a [Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences] open day. I heard Tina Brock speaking so passionately about the course. She’s amazing. It was amazing to hear the different career pathways that pharmacists took; there was a lot of possibility. I’m excited to go down the clinical pathway in hospitals or the pharmaceutical industry in the future.

“At the end of semester one this year I heard about the flu hackathon. Vaccination is so important, and if there’s any way to contribute, big or small, I wanted to be involved and offer solutions.

“Being in a pandemic at the time really propelled me to be more involved, and also with my best friend as a team. So I took the idea to Katya. She was like, ‘Absolutely. Totally. I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen.’”