VACCINATION expert Professor Robert Booy has suggested that influenza vaccines administered by general practitioners are preferable to those available via pharmacy.
Booy, who is head of the clinical research team at Sydney University's National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance and a spokesperson for the Influenza Specialist Group, told MJA Insight he believed patients at high risk should wait until the 2017 vaccine is available from GPs next month.
"There are a lot of people, including people over the age of 65 years, those with chronic medical conditions, pregnant women, Indigenous adults and children under 5 years of age, who can receive this vaccine free of charge some time in April," he said.
"These people should get this updated vaccine the way they have before - free from their GP."
He warned that some chemists were now advertising "cheap flu shots this year using 2016 vaccine stock" which were suitable for healthy people.
"Chemists actually get away with it very easily...there is some Australian stock available, which is quadrivalent, so it is safe and effective. It's an Australian product and it's only available to adults.
"It's not cheap in the sense of being an inferior product - it's a good, quadrivalent vaccine made in Australia," he said.
However the 2017 vaccine, which is not available yet, has been updated to include a new Michigan strain from the US, which is different to the California strain that has been used for the past six years," Booy said - while admitting that the actual strains of flu which emerge each season is a "lottery".
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