Novartis, Cambridge, Mass, has commenced shipment of its seasonal influenza vaccine to customers in the US for the 2012-2013 influenza season. This year, Novartis plans to ship more than 30 million doses of the vaccine, which has been reformulated to include two new influenza strains to meet the updated World Health Organization and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommendations. Fluvirin has been approved by FDA for persons 4 years of age and older.

For the 2012-2013 season, Fluvirin contains antigens that target three influenza virus strains identified by World Health Organization (WHO) experts as likely to dominate circulation. These include: A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)-like virus; A/Victoria/361/2011 (H3N2)-like virus; B/Wisconsin/1/2010-like virus (from the B/Yamagata lineage of viruses).