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Seasonal or pandemic flu causes illness and sometimes death, in vulnerable infants under 6 months old.1 2 Current UK and WHO guidelines recommend that only infants over 6 months receive any sort of flu vaccination, based on the lack of approval for the vaccines for infants under 6 months old, making its use in these infants “off-label”. However, WHO guidance is also clear that “at-risk” populations defined as “… certain chronic health conditions (such as chronic heart or lung disease, metabolic or renal disease or immunodeficiencies)” should be offered the seasonal flu vaccine.3 Some graduates of neonatal units are a high-risk population for flu infection once discharged into the community, but are often less than …
Footnotes
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Competing interests None.
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Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.