Adverse Reactions of Trivalent Influenza Vaccine in HIV-Infected Individuals

In this study, we assessed the adverse reactions to influenza vaccination in HIV- infected individuals. From November 2006 to January 2007, a total of 203 HIV-infected persons were recruited. Demographic data were collected. Subjects were evaluated 48 h and 15 days after vaccination for symptoms and significant health events as possible side effects. Participants were instructed to measure their temperature in the morning and evening for 2 days post-immunization and to assess injection site and systemic adverse reactions. 80.3% of the subjects were male. The mean age of the subjects was 36.9±7.9 years. Local and systemic reactions were reported by 61 (30%) and 62 (30.5%) persons, respectively. The most common adverse reactions to the influenza vaccine included skin redness (37 cases), induration (32 cases), and pain (55 cases) as local reac-tions, and fever (22 cases), myalgia (46 cases), headache (12 cases) and weakness (35 cases) as general reactions. 1.4 % of the subjects had fever over 38.5 ºC. There were significant associations between myalgia and flushing with CD4 counts (P<0.05). We found no relationship between ad-verse reactions and sex, history of smoking, allergy, alcohol, and drug usage, stage of HIV infec-tion, anti-retroviral therapies, anti-TB medication and previous vaccination. We concluded that inactivated influenza vaccine administered in HIV-infected adults did not result in potential ad-verse events in this study population.