What's Your Flu IQ for 2014-2015?
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has just published its official recommendations for the 2014-2015 influenza season. How do the updated guidelines apply to this potential office situation?
On August 15, 2014 the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published the official recommendations for the coming influenza season. You’ve reviewed them, no doubt, highlighting the changes that will affect your inventory this year and noting any specific information you may need to relate to quizzical parents. Your supply of Vaccination Information Sheets (VIS) has been delivered, so you’re ready. Let’s see if all that preparation has paid off with a few office scenarios followed by quiz questions.
It’s early September and a 23-month-old child is in your office for evaluation of a diaper rash. You have several formulations of Fluzone (IIV) vaccine in your office refrigerator including the preservative-free quadravalent formulation and a mercury-containing multidose vial of the trivalent vaccine. The child did receive a single dose of trivalent vaccine last February but did not come back for the recommended second dose last year since he had never had a flu vaccine previously.
You decide to follow the recommendations from the ACIP so you give:
