Update on H1N1 flu and regular flu vaccine as of 9/17/09.
The regular flu vaccine is currently available through your child’s primary care provider, local allergy office and Johns Hopkins Allergy Pediatric Clinic. It is anticipated that the H1N1 flu vaccine will be available to local pediatrician offices, local allergy offices and Johns Hopkins Pediatric Allergy Clinic sometime in mid October. As of this date it is still unknown if there will be an H1N1 flu vaccine available that will be safe for children who are strictly avoiding egg.
We do not make recommendations about whether your child should receive either flu vaccine. That decision is between you and your child’s primary care provider. If your child is tolerating any amount of egg in baked products then it is safe to get the regular flu and H1N1 flu vaccine through your child’s primary care provider. If your child is strictly avoiding egg then it is not recommended that the child receive the regular flu or the H1N1 flu vaccine. However, if you and your child’s primary care provider feel your child should have either or both flu vaccines, then your child should be skin tested to the actual vial of vaccine that your child will receive. If the skin test is negative or small positive then the vaccine will be administered and your child monitored for 30 minutes afterwards. If the skin test is moderately or largely positive the vaccine should not be given. The Flu Mist vaccine contains more egg than the regular flu shot vaccine and is also contraindicated in children with an egg allergy.
The skin prick test and flu vaccine administration can be done through your local allergist, or in our Allergy Clinic here at Johns Hopkins. To make an appointment to have the flu shot administered to your egg allergic child here at Johns Hopkins:
Call the main line: 410-955-5883
Push the option for allergy appointments
Schedule your child for a Flu Vaccine Only appointment.
The vaccine costs $18.02 and you will be asked to pay for that at the time of registration. There are other fees associated with this visit. We strongly encourage you to check with your insurance company before you make that appointment to make sure the visit and vaccine administration will be covered if your child has it done at Johns Hopkins. Otherwise, you could incur a large bill you were not expecting. The skin test, vaccine administration and monitoring is done by our certified medical assistant. You will not be seen by a physician or nurse practitioner unless there is a questionable skin test result or if your child experiences any problems after administration of the vaccine.
WE ARE NOT SCHEDULING FOR THE H1N1 FLU VACCINE AT THIS TIME, ONLY FOR THE REGULAR FLU VACCINE. We will update this information when we get the go ahead to start scheduling for the H1N1 flu vaccine. If you call for a flu vaccine only appointment now, your child will only receive the regular flu vaccine.
Please refer to the website CDC.gov and click on updates for the H1N1 flu to learn more about the disease and the vaccine. Many of your other questions, such as Tamiflu and updates when the flu vaccine will actually be available will be at that site and that is the site we use for our updates. We will update our voice mail and e-mail messages when new information becomes available.
