Question: A patient has an egg allergy which influenza vaccine can I administer?
Answer: The only trivalent vaccine available with no ovalbumin content is Optaflu (Novartis vaccines) which is for people aged 18 years or over. If a patient claims to be egg allergic but has delayed or non-specific symptoms following egg ingestion they can be immunised as normal using one of the vaccines with lower ovalbumin content 0.12 μg/ml (equivalent to 0.06 μg for 0.5 ml dose).
