Safety surveillance of influenza vaccine in children

Our latest publication in Vaccine reports on Enhanced Passive Safety Surveillance (EPSS) of Fluenz® Tetra in children across eight influenza seasons (2015/16 to 2022/23) in England.

Key highlights:

• We delivered EPSS at scale, working with a large number of GP practices and school immunisation teams to collect real-time patient reported outcomes.
• Participating GP practices and school immunisation teams handed out between 8,753 and 17,922 safety report cards to vaccinees each season, totalling 103,236 SRCs across all eight seasons.
• We successfully adapted the EPSS to accommodate year-to-year changes in the vaccination programme.
• The EPSS findings supported the stability of the safety profile of Fluenz® Tetra in children.

Thank you to all researchers, partners, and our NIHR and NHS collaborators who made this eight-year EPSS possible.

Reference: Dhanda, S., Morris, D. E., Morton, K., Hazell, L., & Härmark, L. (2026). Enhanced passive safety surveillance (EPSS) of a seasonal intranasal influenza vaccine (Fluenz® Tetra) in children in England: methodology, results and lessons learned from eight influenza seasons (2015/2016 to 2022/2023). Vaccine, 91, 129007. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2026.129007

Read the full publication: https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0264-410X(26)00816-9