(ANSA) – ROME, MARCH 29 – Even children with asthma can get the spray flu vaccine: according to a study by the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville published in Pediatrics, the live flu vaccine attenuated by intranasal administration does not increase the risk of flare-ups of the disease respiratory.
“Asthma – the researchers write – is considered a precaution to the use of the quadrivalent attenuated live influenza vaccine in people over 5 years old due to the fear of wheezing”, the wheezing caused by the narrowing of the lower respiratory tract.
Research has verified this concern in 151 children between the ages of 5 and 17: half received the attenuated spray vaccine and the other the inactivated, i.e. killed, virus vaccine given by injection. The researchers found no particular differences between the two groups in terms of potentially vaccine-related worsening of asthma: in the month and a half following vaccination, 13% of the children who received the spray vaccine had suffered an asthma flare-up, against 15% of those who received intramuscular vaccination. The situation was no different if one looked only at children suffering from more severe forms of asthma. Comparisons between parameters used to assess pathology such as peak expiratory flow were also not different between the two groups.
As regards the adverse reactions in the two weeks after immunization, the profile of the two vaccines was comparable; the only difference was a higher frequency of muscle aches and sore throats after vaccination in children who received the inactivated vaccine.
On the basis of these data, the researchers call for a re-examination of the attentions used for this form of vaccine.
(ANSA).
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