Flu Vaccinations

The Australian Government recommends that everyone over the age of 6 months has a flu vaccine every year. It’s difficult to predict who will catch the flu, or who will become seriously ill from it. The flu can require someone to be hospitalised and it can even be fatal.

Getting vaccinated against the flu helps protect both you and the people around you. It’s particularly important to protect vulnerable people in the community who can’t be vaccinated, such as babies who are younger than 6 months and adults with low immunity.

For most people, the best time to have your flu vaccine is from April onwards, so that you have had your vaccine before the start of the peak flu season. The protection from the flu vaccine starts to decline after 3-4 months, so having your flu vaccine in April means that you still have optimal protection during the peak June-August flu season. However, you may need to have your flu vaccine earlier for other reasons e.g. travel or work purposes, so talk to your Ramsay Pharmacist about the best time to have your flu vaccine. In any case – it’s never too late to vaccinate!

No. All flu vaccines used in Australia are ‘inactivated’, which means they do not contain the live flu virus and so you can't catch the flu from the vaccine.

Around 1 in 3 people may have some mild tenderness around the injection site, and around 1 in 6 people may experience mild muscle ache, headache and/or tiredness. These side effects can start within a few hours of your being vaccinated and sometimes last for 1 or 2 days. They usually go away on their own, once your body has developed an immune response to the vaccine, which will protect you from the flu virus.

It’s important to remember that the side effects show the vaccine is triggering an immune response, which is what it’s designed to do.

• The influenza vaccine is very safe.
  • Vaccination is a safe and effective way to protect you from serious disease caused by influenza
  • Annual vaccination is the most important measure to prevent influenza and its complications. It is recommended for all people >= 6 months of age. It is particularly important for those most at risk.
  • Influenza vaccine is safe to give during any stage of pregnancy or while breastfeeding for both the mother and her baby. Several systematic reviews have shown no association between influenza vaccination in pregnancy and adverse birth outcomes
• The chance of experiencing a serious problem from having a vaccine is far lower than the risk of serious harm from catching influenza.
  • Vaccination is a safe and effective way to protect you from serious disease caused by influenza. Influenza affects people of all ages but is especially serious for young babies, young children, pregnant women and people with underlying medical conditions. It can require hospitalisation and cause death
  • You may experience minor side effects following vaccination. Most reactions are mild and last no more than a couple of days and you will recover without any problems
  • Serious side effects, such as a severe allergic reaction are extremely rare
• The vaccine doesn’t contain any live virus, so you can’t get the flu from being vaccinated.
  • While some effects may seem like influenza, none of the influenza vaccines available in Australia contain live influenza viruses, so they cannot cause influenza.

Flu vaccination prevents illness in 5 or 6 out of 10 healthy adults under the age of 65. Because the vaccine is not effective in absolutely every case, some people may still catch the virus after having the flu vaccine, but the risk of illness is still reduced.

Although most people who get the flu recover without lasting effects, the flu can be very serious in some people and may require them to be hospitalised. In some cases, it can even be fatal. Vaccination against the flu reduces your chances of getting it and may reduce the severity of the symptoms, so it is still important to have the shot.

Feeling cold doesn't cause the flu (or the common cold). The only way to catch influenza is to be exposed to the virus, via tiny droplets of mucus that are coughed or sneezed into the air or transmitted through touch.

Cold and flu season does happen to coincide with the colder months. Wintry weather forces people indoors more often — where they're more likely to be in close proximity with infectious people.

You need a flu vaccination each year as the flu virus frequently changes. The flu vaccine is updated every year according to the most common strains likely to affect Australia during the winter season. The benefit of the flu vaccine tends to wear off after three to four months.

Egg-based influenza vaccines in 2025 will contain the following strains:

• an A/Victoria/4897/2022 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus
• an A/Thailand/8/2022 (H3N2)-like virus
• a B/Austria/1359417/2021 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus
• a B/Phuket/3073/2013 (B/Yamagata lineage)-like virus

Reference: https://www.tga.gov.au/resources/publication/meeting-statements/aivc-recommendations-composition-influenza-vaccines-australia-2025

For the 2025 flu season, Ramsay Pharmacy will be using a cell-based vaccine for people aged between 6 months and 64 years, rather than a ‘traditional’ egg-based vaccine. Cell-based vaccines have no egg content at all and can be confidently given to people who have an egg allergy.

For people aged 65 years and over, a different (adjuvanted) flu vaccine has been shown to be more effective and is recommended by the Australian Government Department of Health. Adjuvanted flu vaccine is grown in eggs. However, the amount of egg protein that remains after the vaccine is made is so tiny that the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy (ASCIA) advises that people with egg allergy can be safely vaccinated using an egg-based vaccine. The risk of anaphylaxis in response to the vaccine is very low, estimated at 1.35 cases per 1 million doses.

The flu vaccine won’t protect you against COVID-19 (coronavirus), but it will reduce your risk of influenza — which leads to thousands of hospitalisations each year. By getting the flu vaccine, you can reduce the strain on the health service.

Yes, the flu vaccine and the covid-19 vaccine can both be given on the same day.

The National Immunisation Program provides government-funded vaccines for those most at risk, including: children aged 6 months-<5 years; pregnant women at any stage of pregnancy; First Nations people aged 6 months and over; people aged 65 years and older; people with certain medical risk factors.

Your Ramsay Pharmacist can vaccinate under the National Immunisation Program free of charge (fully government funded).

All Queensland residents aged 6 months and over are eligible for free flu vaccination as part of the 2025 Free Flu Vaccination Program between 1 March 2025 and 30 September 2025.