If Your Child is Diagnosed with Influenza Will You or Will You not Vaccinate Him Next Year?

Background: Worldwide, public health institutions recommend influenza immunization to all people 6 months and older as the mainstay preventive measure to control influenza. Nevertheless, influenza vaccine uptake is suboptimal, especially among children.

Aims: To compare influenza vaccination coverage of influenza-positive and influenza-negative children in two serial influenza seasons

Methods: Subjects up to 18 years of age with clinical suspicion of influenza, 10/2017-4/ 2018, with ensuing influenza testing were eligible for inclusion. Subjects were divided into positive- influenza (Antigen/PCR, respectively) and negative-influenza groups. A follow-up questionnaire exploring the family’s 2018-2019 influenza vaccination was completed.

Results: 133 children (74 Male; mean age 4.6, range 0.1-18) who underwent hospital influenza-testing were included. Children diagnosed with influenza were significantly older than their counterparts were (p<0.001). Overall, 47 (35.3%) had a confirmed influenza virus and 16 (12.1%) RSV.

While 97.7% of the children were up-to-date with their immunization schedule, only 7.5% of the children received an influenza vaccine. There were no statistically significant differences in influenza vaccine coverage between the two groups in the two influenza seasons; although, there was a statistically significant increase in the overall number of children immunized in 2018-2019. The most common reasons for failure to vaccinate in descending order were doubt in the vaccines efficacy (42.9%), do not have the flu (17.0%), too busy (16.1%) and side effects (15.2%), respectively.

Conclusion: A pediatric hospital visit with laboratory-confirmed influenza did not alter the next season’s vaccine coverage. Future studies should explore additional means to increase influenza vaccine acceptance.