Sending your children to school may be the best way to save your family from the flu. Administering nasal spray flu vaccines to entire elementary school populations has ripple effects that protect entire families, a national study led by the University of Maryland School of Medicine found.
“We think this is a good model to look at avian flu or a pandemic flu,” said James King, professor of pediatrics and principal investigator.
The study compared families of children who attend schools where the vaccine was given to everyone with families of children in schools with similar demographics who were not vaccinated.
The study included public schools in Maryland, Texas and Minnesota and four private schools in the state of Washington. The results, published in today?s edition of The New England Journal of Medicine, showed the parents of those children vaccinated missed fewer workdays and their siblings missed less school for illness.
“Compared to the group with nonvaccinated school children, there was a 23 to 36 percent relative reduction in adult and child influenza-like illnesses in the intervention school households,” King said.
But the study?s implications go beyond missing a few days of work.
Approximately 36,000 people nationwide die from influenza each year, mostly the elderly and the very young, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Another 200,000 go to the hospital.
“Many studies have shown that children are the primary transmitters of influenza to their families and communities,” he said.
School-based vaccinations would be more effective than sending children to the doctor for yet another round of mandatory vaccinations.
This study was funded by Gaithersburg?s MedImmune Inc., developer and manufacturer of FluMist nasal spray, as well as Ross Pharmaceuticals and Glaxo-Smith-Kline.
