With the flu season expected to peak next month, researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine reported today that vaccinating schoolchildren against the disease reduces not only their risk but that of their families as well.
The scientists gave nasal spray vaccine to more than 2,000 children ages 5 to 11 in Maryland and three other states at the outset of the 2004 flu season.
During the peak week of that flu season, children who got the vaccine and their families were less likely to contract the flu or come down with flu-like symptoms than those who weren't vaccinated. They also required fewer medications and doctor's visits, the researchers reported.
FOR THE RECORD - An article in yesterday's editions about tests of inhaled flu vaccine on schoolchildren incorrectly reported the role that MedImmune Inc., the manufacturer of the vaccine, played in the study. A company employee designed the study and reviewed results before publication, but was not involved in data collection. THE SUN REGRET THE ERROR
Advocates said the results add to a body of evidence that vaccinating children against the flu is an effective way to protect adults, too.
"We only looked at one week of the flu season, and yet we saw a big difference. To me, that's phenomenal," said Dr. James King, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Maryland and the principal investigator.
The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, was funded by MedImmune, the Gaithersburg firm that makes the FluMist vaccine used in the trial. Company employees were also involved in gathering the data.
Still, experts who weren't involved in the research say the results are worth noting, regardless of the funding source.
"It's impressive they were able to measure such an effect, given the numbers they had," said Dr. Neal Halsey, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The study was good news for MedImmune, which has been struggling to find a niche for its inhaled vaccine in a market dominated by injections. But an unrelated study, also released yesterday, showed that for adults, flu shots might be more effective than a nasal vaccine.
Flu kills about 36,000 people in the U.S. and hospitalizes about 200,000 each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Youngsters with the flu are more contagious than adults and remain contagious longer because their immature immune systems have more trouble fighting the disease, King said. "They're like little transistors that can amplify it," he said.
Meanwhile, health experts here say the 2006-2007 flu season hasn't peaked in Maryland.
