Injecting flu vaccine may be more painful than administering it through nasal spray but U.S. pediatricians will likely give kids flu vaccine in the form of shot this year.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) on Tuesday recommended against using nasal spray after U.S. health officials found that the easy-to-use and pain-free nasal spray version of the flu vaccine does not work as well as the jab.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which recommends use of vaccines to control diseases in the United States, declined to recommend the nasal spray citing studies that found FluMist was only 3 percent effective in children between 2 and 17 years old during the past three flu seasons. Injected flu vaccines, on the other hand, protected about two thirds of the kids in the same age group.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) accepted ACIP's recommendation on Aug. 26.
"ACIP makes the interim recommendation that LAIV4 should not be used," the CDC said. "Because LAIV4 is still a licensed vaccine that might be available and that some providers might elect to use, for informational purposes, reference is made to previous recommendations for its use."
The AAP followed suit urging doctors not to use nasal spray during the 2016-2017 flu season.
"In light of the evidence for poor effectiveness of quadrivalent live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV4) documented during the past 3 seasons, particularly against influenza A (H1N1)pdm09 viruses, LAIV4 should not be used in any setting during the 2016-2017 season," the AAP said in a statement.
The group recommended flu immunization for everyone starting at 6 months old noting that 85 children in the country died from flu during the recent season, most of whom had not been vaccinated.
People are likely to think that only children who suffer from other illnesses such as cancer, heart problems, diabetes, or asthma die of flu but last year, half of the children who died of flu did not have any of these diseases. The AAP likewise recommended people who care for children to get vaccinated.
While most children only need a single shot, children who are new to flu vaccines need to get two doses, which should be administered four weeks apart.
Besides being spritzed up the nose, FluMist is different from other vaccines because it uses live flu virus. Researchers are not sure if this is a factor why in previous years, the nasal spray caused stronger immune response than flu shot. The same reason is behind why some kids such as those with asthma cannot be administered FluMist
