The FluMist vaccine is taken in the form of a nasal spray. File photo.
Photo: 123RF
Bringing a needle-free flu vaccine to New Zealand would be a good way to boost the country’s vaccination rates, says a vaccine expert.
FluMist has long been used in the northern hemisphere and started being used in Australia this year.
The vaccine is taken in the form of a nasal spray, bypassing the need for an injection.
Immunisation Advisory Centre principal medical advisor Professor Nikki Turner is calling for pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to bring FluMist to New Zealand, saying needles are “way more of a barrier than we realise”.
“Many, many people are just not keen on needles, so you put off doing things because you really don’t want the needle,” she said.
“So it’s important we recognise that and respond to that, and this is one useful way to do that.”
She said FluMist had only recently become available in the southern hemisphere, because each hemisphere had slightly different flu strains.
“The reason why it’s not well established in the southern hemisphere is that each year you have to change the formulation in the flu vaccine to match the circulating strains, and so they’ve done that for the northern hemisphere but the company haven’t really been in a position to do that for the southern hemisphere [until recently],” she said.
Since the vaccine had been approved for use in Australia, Professor Turner expected it would be easy for the company to get approval in New Zealand.
But she said it was up to AstraZeneca to pitch the vaccine to Medsafe.
“The company has to present it to Medsafe for licensure. That should be pretty straightforward, but it has to be presented by the company to Medsafe and for the company to do that they’d want to know they would get decent sales,” she explained.
“So we want to say this would be great for the New Zealand market, we have a significant burden of flu on our young children and we think this would be a great vaccine to have available to move away from injectible vaccines.”
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.