Flu can be a very unpleasant illness for children and may bring potentially serious complications such as bronchitis and pneumonia. The children’s flu vaccine is offered as a yearly nasal spray to young children to help protect them against this flu.
Children aged 2 to 17 with long-term health conditions such as diabetes are at higher risk from flu.
Children between the ages of six months and two years who are at high risk from flu are offered the annual flu jab, usually at their GP surgery.
Common side effects may experience after the vaccination. These includes a runny or blocked nose, headache, general tiredness and loss of appetite.
The nasal spray flu vaccine will not only help protect your child against flu, the infection will also be less able to spread from them to their family, carers and the wider population.
How is the nasal spray flu vaccine given?
The vaccine is given as a single spray squirted up each nostril. Not only is it needle-free – a big advantage for children – the nasal spray is quick, painless, and works even better than the injected flu vaccine.
The vaccine is absorbed very quickly. It will still work even if your child develops a runny nose, sneezes or blows their nose. Children unable to have the nasal spray vaccine may be able to have the injectable flu vaccine instead.
Children should have their nasal spray flu vaccination delayed if they have a runny or blocked nose and if they are wheezy. Until the child have been fully recovered only then he/she can take the vaccination.
The vaccine is not recommended for children who have:
How many doses of the flu vaccine do children need?
Most children only need a single dose of the nasal spray.
The patient information leaflet provided with the nasal spray suggests children should be given two doses of this vaccine if they’ve not had flu vaccine before.
Children aged two to nine years at risk of flu because of an underlying medical condition, who have not received flu vaccine before, should have two doses of the nasal spray given at least four weeks apart.
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