Flu vax hesitation sends kids to emergency in droves
Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital has seen a 27 per cent increase in flu cases compared to the previous year, with many unvaccinated children requiring hospitalisation.
The survey of almost 2000 parents revealed 36 per cent were unaware healthy children can get seriously unwell from the flu.
The hospital's national child health poll found 17 per cent of children would not be vaccinated against the flu this year, with some 22 per cent of parents still unsure whether they would vaccinate their kids.
Director of the National Child Health Poll Anthea Rhodes said the research shows significant knowledge gaps still exist among parents when it comes to the flu.
"Unfortunately, it means parents are unintentionally putting their kids at risk because they don't have the right health information," she told AAP.
The research also found hesitant parents were twice as likely to say they did not know where to find trustworthy flu vaccine information online and three times as likely to distrust information from their child's doctor or nurse.
Dr Rhodes said this could be due to vaccine fatigue felt by a number of people following the COVID-19 pandemic.
But she said it was important to remember that vaccination reduces the risk of catching the flu by 50 to 60 per cent and significant lowers the severity of the illness.
She said even healthy children could run into complications of heart, kidney and brain inflammation if not vaccinated against the flu.
The survey found one in six children had a needle phobia so intense their parents reported it prevented them from getting vaccinated.
Others said the vaccine was too costly or they just didn't have the time.
Dr Rhodes said while programs through local councils and GPs were available, more research was needed to investigate whether the flu vaccine could be introduced to the school immunisation rollout.
"In the UK, for example, they do have school based programs where they have an intranasal flu vaccine product," Dr Rhodes said.
"One of the main challenges for Australia to date has been getting that product available to enable delivery in schools, because the flu strain changes each season.
"But certainly in the future we are continuing to work towards solutions like that would be a really big game changer for families when it comes to the flu."
It is not too late to vaccinate, she said.
In Victoria, flu vaccinations are free for children until they turn five while family members over five can generally receive the vaccine for low cost.
Western Australia and Queensland are offering free flu vaccinations for all age groups but this initiative has not been adopted nationwide.
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