Andrew Gwynne – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-11-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the (a) forecast reduction in cases of and deaths from infection by influenza as a result of the nasal flu vaccine in 2015, (b) forecast number of nasal flu vaccines administered and (c) cost of delivering that programme in each of the next three years.

Jane Ellison

It is difficult to forecast the population impact that the nasal flu vaccine will have in the forthcoming season as vaccine effectiveness will vary according to the circulating influenza virus in any one season together with the vaccine uptake achieved. In general the effectiveness of live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) ranges from 50% upwards against illness caused by antigenically matched strains in children, but has also shown some protection against antigenically mismatched strains. The provisional uptake in two, three and four year olds in England up to week 46 2015 (ending 15 November 2015) was 23.0%, 24.0% and 19.4% respectively.

In 2016/17 the childhood flu programme will cover all 2-7 year olds and at risk children.

In 2017/18 the childhood flu programme will cover all 2-10 year olds and at risk children.

Table 1: The forecast number of nasal flu vaccines administered to children in each of the next three years.

Source: NHS England’s Spending Review submission for childhood flu.

Table 2: The forecast cost of delivering the childhood flu programme in each of the next three years.

Note: These are the full programme costs (including the cost of the vaccine).