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Expanded Flu Shot Recommendations for Children

February 23, 2006

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Flu shots are now being recommended for children from 6 months to 5 years of age. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had previously recommended the shots for kids from 6 months to 23 months old.

An advisory committee also voted to recommend expanding routine vaccination for household contacts (anyone who spends a significant amount of time in the home) and out-of-home caregivers of children 24-59 months old. The previous recommendation had been for household contacts and caregivers for children 6 months to 23 months old.

The earlier guidelines had been aimed at preventing hospitalization of young children. the revised guidelines take a broader view and are intended to help limit the spread of the flu virus from children to their caregivers and older family members.

"This is an important recommendation to help reduce the overall burden of influenza among children," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of CDC's National Immunization Program.

"Vaccination of children 24 to 59 months old will likely reduce the risk of influenza-related complications for all children in this age group, not just those identified as those with the highest risk of complications from influenza."

Presenters at the advisory committee meeting indicated that otherwise healthy children are at increased risk for requiring influenza-related medical care and that rates of medical outpatient visits for influenza-related illnesses are high in all childhood ages.

It was also noted that children 24 months to 59 months old with influenza are nearly as likely to require visits to healthcare providers and emergency rooms as children 6 months to 23 months old.

Approximately 5.3 million children and 11.4 million healthy household contacts or caregivers for these children will also be covered by the new recommendation.

Vaccination of all children who have certain chronic medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes, kidney disease or weakened immune systems continues to be strongly recommended by the CDC committee. Children younger than nine years who will be receiving the influenza vaccine for the first time should receive two doses.

The CDC said it will continue to review new vaccination strategies for improving the prevention and control of influenza, including the possibility of expanding routine influenza vaccination recommendations to the entire U. S. population.

Influenza vaccine manufacturers have indicated that they plan to produce between 100 million and 120 million doses of influenza vaccine for the 2006-07 influenza season.

The 2006-07 influenza vaccine will include two new strains, an A/Wisconsin/67/2005 (H3N2)-like virus and a B/Malaysia/2506/2004- like virus; the A/New Caledonia/20/99(H1N1)-like virus strain from the 2005-2006 season will remain in the upcoming vaccine.

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