HEIDELBERG, Germany — A recommendation last week by federal vaccine advisers that all U.S. children ages 5 to 18 receive an annual flu shot was greeted with puzzlement by American military disease prevention experts in Europe.
Doctors here have been vaccinating that same group for at least the past two years, said Lt. Col. John Maza, epidemiology chief at the Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine at Landstuhl.
“We haven’t excluded the 5 to 18 year olds,” Maza said. “It’s part of practice over here. As a preventive medicine specialist, I’m intrigued that they haven’t recommended it in the past.”
On Wednesday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, voted unanimously to expand recommendations on who should get flu shots. Previously, the recommendation was for children ages 6 months to 5 years, adults over 50 and those with chronic illness.
The panel said that immunizing children will not only protect their health but also that of parents and grandparents who often contract influenza from them.
The recommendation was made in the midst of widespread influenza throughout the U.S. this year — and concern that this year’s vaccine was a less than ideal match for the flu strains circulating.
The U.S. military population in Europe this year is seeing a “moderate” increase in flu cases. By last year at this time, there were 118 cases of influenza confirmed through nasal swabs. There have been 171 cases so far this year.
“It may represent a more severe flu season,” Maza said. “Or it could represent increased surveillance on our part.”
Americans associated with the U.S. military in Europe are vaccinated against the flu at higher rates than most Americans. Nearly 100 percent of active-duty military members — 98 percent of those within U.S. Army Europe and 97 percent within U.S. Air Force Europe, Maza said — get vaccinated.
“We’re all supposed to get the flu shot,” Maza said.
The CDC said in early February that more than half of the influenza virus strains reported to its surveillance system were not good matches against the strains included in this flu season’s vaccine — partly because one strain began circulating too late to be included.
But the vaccines still help prevent serious disease, according to the CDC, even if they do not completely prevent infection, and officials have urged anyone who wants to reduce flu-associated risks to get vaccinated.
Flu vaccines contain a mixture of two influenza “A” strains and one “B” strain for broad protection against always mutating flu strains expected to circulate. Maza said the A strains tend to make people sicker but the B strain infects more children.
This year’s vaccine had an “optimal” match in only one of the A strains, according to the CDC.
Next year’s vaccine will contain three different strains from this year’s.
