UK stands by nasal flu vaccine for children as US doctors are told to stop using it

The £100m (€130m; $150m) a year childhood flu vaccination campaign in the United Kingdom will continue despite evidence from the United States that the inhaled vaccine is ineffective.

Public Health England (PHE) said that its data contradict those of the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which recently advised the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to stop vaccinating children because, for the past three flu seasons, the vaccine seemed to have little effect.

All children in the UK aged 2 have been offered vaccination against flu since September 2013, and the programme was extended last year to include infant school children.1 It is gradually being rolled out to include all children aged 2 to 17.

PHE published provisional figures for the UK that showed that the …