An Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, at a February meeting, in Atlanta has added new recommendations for introducing the “Influenza Vaccination” among the younger children who are less than 18 years of age. This is an attempt to reduce the incidence of influence among the children and adolescents and the adults with whom they come in contact with.

This apparently indicates 30 million more children to be vaccinated, one of the largest expansions in flu vaccination coverage in U.S. history. This is a part of a drive to fight going against the flu since the 1940s.

Anne Schuchat, MD, Director of the ‘CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases’ says that this new recommendation would be able to reduce the risk of influenza infections among children of all ages. ACIP intends to expand the supply of the flu vaccines to large number of people as the supplies have been increasingly stable and the medical benefits of the vaccines are also showing up.

They say that all the recommended children should start getting the vaccination as soon as possible agreeing to the fact that many doctors have already ordered the vaccine for the next flu season which usually starts in the falls and continues throughout the spring season.

The vaccine was previously confined for the children confined within the age group of 6 to 59 months old. It was also highly recommended for the children to receive the vaccine belonging to the age group from 5 to 18 years who fall in the high risk group and had been facing complications.

ACIP would try to implement the new recommendation as soon as possible and would try to accomplish it by 2009-10 seasons.

A new gradation has been provided to the viruses by the Food and Drug Administration. They have been trying to provide vaccines for the coming season. Brisbane/59/2007-like (H1N1) and Brisbane/10/2007-like (H3N2) viruses are graded as strains whereas the B strain are graded as the Florida/4/2006-like virus.

Since both of these strains were not included in the last season’s vaccine schedule, it has raised a concern among the experts as they feel that the lack of experience among the manufacturers with these strains may interfere with the targets however they are quite hopeful for the Southern Hemisphere. The flu vaccines for this region have already been manufactured for the past six months.

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