There’s one much less excuse to skip the flu shot this season.
Pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca is out with a brand new model of the flu vaccine, and it makes getting vaccinated simpler than ever. The drug will be administered at dwelling, supplying you with one much less purpose to trek to the physician’s workplace. And even higher for the needle-averse: You don’t want a jab to get it—the vaccine is available in nasal spray type.
The drug, which was permitted by the Meals and Drug Administration final fall, is on the market now and will be ordered on-line. Whereas it should value $70 out of pocket, AstraZeneca says that anybody with insurance coverage protection will solely must pay $8.99 for delivery. FluMist Residence ships in a particular cooling container and must be saved in a cool setting. So if you happen to order the vaccine, you’ll must pop it within the fridge till you intend to manage it.
Flu vaccination charges are on the downswing within the U.S., a phenomenon linked to pandemic fatigue and vaccine misinformation. Whereas the flu is an endemic virus that comes again round yearly, it may nonetheless be harmful for unimmunized children, older adults, and other people with compromised immune methods.
The flu vaccine isn’t the one shot that Individuals are skipping. From 2019 to 2023, measles vaccination charges fell from 95% to 92%, dipping under the crucial threshold for population-level safety. Anti-vaccine activism is rising within the U.S., and that motion now has Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a outstanding ally, working the Division of Well being and Human Companies.
On Thursday, HHS introduced that it’ll convey again a activity pressure geared toward scrutinizing the protection of vaccines for youngsters. The Kids’s Well being Protection, an anti-vaccine group based by Kennedy, known as for the duty pressure to be reestablished in a lawsuit filed towards its former chief in Might.
