SHEA Guidance Statement

Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology
Vol. 33, No. 10, October 2012
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/667772

The Use of Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine (LAIV) in Healthcare Personnel (HCP): Guidance from the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA)
Thomas R. Talbot, MD, MPH,1 Hilary Babcock, MD, MPH,2 Deborah Cotton, MD, MPH,3,4 Lisa L. Maragakis, MD, MPH,5 Gregory A. Poland, MD,6 Edward J. Septimus, MD,7,8 Michael L. Tapper, MD,9 David J. Weber, MD, MPH,10 and writing as the SHEA Task Force on Healthcare Personnel Influenza Vaccination

[Editor’s Extract]
“…SHEA endorses the use of LAIV as an alternative to the inactivated influenza vaccine, particularly for those HCP who avoid an annual influenza vaccination because of fear of needle injections. SHEA also agrees with the restriction of LAIV from those HCP who, in the week following vaccination, have frequent contact with patients who reside in a protective environment (eg, HCP in a bone marrow transplantation unit), but it notes that this recommendation is made as a result of an abundance of caution. Those HCP who have frequent contact with patients in protective environments but who will not care for such patients in the week following vaccination may still receive LAIV. HCP who have the potential for infrequent contact with patients in protective environments (ie, when the majority of patients contacted do not reside in a protective environment, such as a radiology technologist performing a chest radiograph or an emergency department physician during the initial patient evaluation) should not be excluded from vaccination with LAIV. Finally, HCP who provide care to other immunosuppressed populations (eg, neonatal and burn unit patients and oncologic patients undergoing chemotherapy but not requiring a formal protective environment) may still receive LAIV…”