Flu season is upon us — and so is the prick of the vaccine needle.
Thanks to a new FDA approval, people can soon avoid the stick and instead order a nasal spray directly to their homes. Called FluMist, it contains a live but weakened form of the virus and works just as well as a traditional vaccine. It’s approved for people between 2 and 49 years of age.
However, the manufacturer expects that home shipments won’t be available until the 2025 flu season.
“So don’t … get worried if you’re not getting your FluMist,” Dr. Katherine Gergen-Barnett told Boston Public Radio on Friday. Gergen-Barnett is a primary care physician at Boston Medical Center and an associate professor at Boston University Medical School.
FluMist is not new — the FDA first approved it in 2003 — but this is the first approval for home administration. That means people can administer their own dose, or have a caregiver’s help, without needing to go to a health care provider’s office. It will still require a prescription and people can order it through a third-party online pharmacy.
For traditional vaccines, some people find it difficult to get an appointment, leave work or take kids out of school, so Gergen-Barnett said she’s hopeful that a home-delivered nasal vaccine will lower the barriers to getting more people vaccinated.
In the meantime, Gergen-Barnett said eligible people should get this year’s flu shots in September or October. The CDC recommends that everyone 6 months and older should get a flu shot every year, with rare exceptions for people with allergies.
Gergen-Barnett said it’s also important for people to get this year’s COVID-19 vaccine because it targets the latest FLiRT variants and mitigates the risk of getting severely infected.
“It is not seen as something just to boost yourself. It’s actually seen as a new vaccine,” she said. “It’s a one-time vaccine, unless you have a low immune system, in which case it might be two, or you’re getting it for the first time and you’re a child.”
