Come September: Prepare for Flue Vaccination

Blog:  December 7th, 2025

Source: http://www.aginghealthforum.com/

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COME SEPTEMBER: PREPARE FOR FLUE VACCINATION

I am prompted to write this blog as a quick aftermath of an ASSOCHAM Roundtable meet held on December 5, 2025 in Delhi. Over 40 experts were invited that included Central and State Government functionaries (DGHS, CDSCO, NCDC, RHS Railways, AIIMS, NHSRC, ESI) together with geriatricians, pulmonologists, cardiologists, pharma personnel and others. Logistics of influenza vaccination were dominantly discussed. My own impressions are:

Background: Globally, one billion cases of influenza happen each year resulting in 2-6 lacs deaths specially among the very aged and those with co-morbidities. 98.6% are influenza A (with H1N1 variety being commoner than the more virulent H3N2 variety) and remaining 1.4% due to influenza B virus. Some strains of the H1N1 are endemic in humans and cause seasonal flue while some strains of H1N1 are endemic in pigs and birds causing swine and avian flue respectively. Human infection peaks in India from October to May.

Coverage and way forward: Target for universal coverage of all adults and elderly in India seems far-fetched as it is marred by laggard response from individuals and as a cost ineffective public health investment. Nevertheless, given the fact that influenza related morbidity and mortality is preventable by vaccination along with other primary care (frequent hand washing, personal hygiene, social distancing and use of masks), vaccination does have valuable role

What might be achievable is to provide an affordable annual influenza vaccination coverage to the very aged (e.g. 75+), immunocompromised, long term care residents, health care providers, care givers and contacts and all those irrespective of age who are having chronic diseases like diabetes, heart, lung, kidney and cancer ailments. Benefits reaped through such approach are enormous and include mitigating illness severity, protecting pregnant women, extending herd immunity, lowering risk of hospitalization and death and reducing health care burden as a whole.

Supporting steps include creating mass awareness of vaccine benefits, establishing influenza registries, reducing pollution and undertaking research for generating improved surveillance data, developing vaccines with longer memory and innovating for better health economics for community wide interventions.