What You Should Know About the 2015-2016 Flu Season
What kind of vaccines are available in the United States for 2015-2016?
A number of different private sector vaccine manufacturers produce flu vaccine for use in the United States. This season both trivalent (three component) and quadrivalent (four component) influenza vaccines will be available. Different routes of administration are available for flu vaccines, including intramuscular, intradermal, jet injector and nasal spray vaccine.
This season:
- Intramuscular (IM) vaccines will be available in both trivalent and quadrivalent formulations. (High dose vaccines, which are IM vaccines, will all be trivalent this season.)
- For people who are 18 through 64 years old, a jet injector can be used for delivery of one particular trivalent flu vaccine (AFLURIA® by bioCSL Inc.).
- Nasal spray vaccines will all be quadrivalent this season.
- Intradermal vaccine will all be quadrivalent.
How much flu vaccine will be available this season?
Flu vaccine is produced by private manufacturers, so supply depends on manufacturers. For this season, manufacturers have projected they will provide between 164.5 and 173.5 million doses of vaccine for the U.S. market. (Projections may change as the season progresses.)
What flu viruses does this season’s vaccine protect against?
Flu vaccines are designed to protect against the main flu viruses that research suggests will be the most common during the upcoming season. Three kinds of flu viruses commonly circulate among people today: influenza A (H1N1) viruses, influenza A (H3N2) viruses and influenza B viruses.
All of the 2015-2016 influenza vaccine is made to protect against the following three viruses:
- an A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus
- an A/Switzerland/9715293/2013 (H3N2)-like virus
- a B/Phuket/3073/2013-like virus. (This is a B/Yamagata lineage virus)
Some of the 2015-2016 flu vaccine is quadrivalent vaccine and also protects against an additional B virus (B/Brisbane/60/2008-like virus). This is a B/Victoria lineage virus.
Vaccines that give protection against three viruses are called trivalent vaccines. Vaccines that give protection against four viruses are called quadrivalent vaccines.