AAP Prefers Shots Over Spray for Immunizing Kids Next Flu Season

The American Academy of Pediatrics has already decided that immunizing children with nasal spray just won’t cut it next flu season, again issuing a recommendation to use injectable flu vaccine instead. The AAP Board of Directors made the call after reviewing data on the effectiveness of this season’s flu shot compared with the nasal spray flu vaccine, which has not worked as well in recent years. It’s a slight break from the opinion of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) gave a mild endorsement of the live attenuated nasal flu vaccine (Flumist) for the 2018–2019 flu season. AAP expects to publish their formal policy on flu prevention in a few weeks. This is the third year in a row that AAP declined to recommend the nasal vaccine; they were joined by ACIP for the past two. Both groups based their decisions on evidence showing the nasal vaccine had poor efficacy against H1N1 and other strains. This year, AAP says the nasal spray should only be used in children who would otherwise go unvaccinated completely.