A new study published in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, unveils that flu jabs are not associated with the hospitalisation of children suffering from sickle cell anaemia.

From long it is believed that children with sickle cell anaemia have a greater risk of influenza complications compared to children without sickle cell anaemia, and are hence advised to receive annual vaccines.

On the contrary, research spearheaded by Simon J. Hambidge, MD, PhD, from the Institute for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente Colorado, Denver found that influenza vaccination in children with sickle cell anaemia is completely safe and is not the reason behind their hospitalisation.

For the purpose of study, Dr. Hambidge and his team reviewed all children aged 6 months through 17 years in the Vaccine Safety Datalink panel from 1999 to 2006 diagnosed with sickle cell anaemia.

Study authors matched case-control and self-controlled case in 8 managed care organisations to explore the link between trivalent inactivated influenza vaccination and hospitalisation for sickle cell crisis within 2 weeks after vaccination.

On compilation of the result, researchers identified 179 children out of 1085 subjects with 1 or more sickle cell crisis during influenza season. Researchers also found that the hospitalisation rates for sickle cell crisis dropped in the last two years of the study.

In the MCC study, on matching the case-control study, the odds ration of sickle cell crisis hospitalisation in vaccinated children was 1.3, when compared unvaccinated children. Similarly, in the self-controlled case series study of hospitalised cases, the incident rate ratio for sickle cell crisis hospitalisation in 14 days after influenza vaccination was just 1.2.

On completion of the large cohort study, the researchers could not draw any definite conclusion that flu shots up the risk of hospitalisation for children suffering from sickle cell anaemia.