Publications
Partners
No vaccine is 100% effective. Factors either within a person or relating to the vaccine may cause the vaccine not to take or not to provide full protection. This is even more accurate in the case of flu vaccines, as scientists have to predict which strains are more likely to cause disease each year.
In Australia all flu vaccines currently available are safe to use in adults and have passed rigorous safety testing before being approved for use by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). With regard to children, the seasonal flu vaccine is considered safe and children as young as six months can be vaccinated.
However, only specific brands of flu vaccine are registered with the TGA for use in children while certain flu vaccines are not advised for use in certain age groups of children.
Studies have shown that protection from the vaccine in healthy adults can be 70 - 90% when the strains are well matched, compared to 50% - 80% when they are not well matched. In this group, the vaccine reduces hospital admissions by 90% and days off work by 43%.
These figures may change for certain groups:
• In older people in nursing homes, the vaccine confers a maximum of 40% protection against flu and reduces death from flu-related illness by 39%. These numbers marginally improve in the case of healthy senior citizens.
• In children, the vaccine is reported to prevent 59% - 82% of influenza cases, though the rates may be lower in children with asthma. If just a child is immunised, but not everyone in the household, the likelihood of others in the house contracting flu can be reduced by up to 42%.
Reference: Immunise Australia Program. http://www.immunise.health.gov.au/internet/immunise/publishing.nsf/Content/immunise-influenza-qanda
