Sanofi Pasteur’s Fluzone High-Dose is available on the National Immunisation Program ahead of the 2018 influenza season for people aged 65 and older.
Fluzone High-Dose, registered by the TGA in December 2017, is a trivalent, seasonal flu vaccine designed specifically for people aged 65 and older. The vaccine contains four times the amount of antigen for each of the three strains in the vaccine, compared with regular trivalent flu vaccines.
Sanofi says the Fluzone High-Dose vaccine has been proven to provide increased clinical protection against flu among older adults, compared with standard-dose, unadjuvanted, trivalent vaccines.
The 2017 flu season in Australia brought the highest level of flu activities on record, with almost 250,000 laboratory-confirmed flu cases – three times the number of notifications compared with 2016. Older adults were most affected by the 2017 season. According to Sanofi, in NSW alone, 784 aged-care residents were hospitalised because of multiple flu outbreaks, while 304 residents died due to confirmed cases of flu and its complications.
“The vaccine’s pivotal clinical trial demonstrated that Fluzone High-Dose was 24 per cent more effective in preventing laboratory-confirmed influenza, than the regular trivalent influenza vaccine, in people 65 years of age or older,” Sanofi said. “In addition to Fluzone High-Dose, Sanofi Pasteur will also supply the Australian government with FluQuadri, available to eligible people aged three years and older, and FluQuadri Junior, for eligible children aged six months to less than three years.”
