America’s first needle-free, at-home flu vaccine is now available

There’s one less excuse to skip the flu shot this season. 

Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is out with a new version of the flu vaccine, and it makes getting vaccinated easier than ever. The drug can be administered at home, giving you one less reason to trek to the doctor’s office. And even better for the needle-averse: You don’t need a jab to get it—the vaccine comes in nasal spray form.

The drug, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last fall, is available now and can be ordered online. While it will cost $70 out of pocket, AstraZeneca says that anyone with insurance coverage will only need to pay $8.99 for shipping. FluMist Home ships in a special cooling container and needs to be stored in a cool environment. So if you order the vaccine, you’ll need to pop it in your fridge until you plan to administer it.

Flu vaccination rates are on the downswing in the U.S., a phenomenon linked to pandemic fatigue and vaccine misinformation. While the flu is an endemic virus that comes back around every year, it can still be dangerous for unimmunized kids, older adults, and people with compromised immune systems.

The flu vaccine isn’t the only shot that Americans are skipping. From 2019 to 2023, measles vaccination rates fell from 95% to 92%, dipping below the critical threshold for population-level protection. Anti-vaccine activism is rising in the U.S. and that movement now has Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent ally, running the Department of Health and Human Services. 

On Thursday, HHS announced that it will bring back a task force aimed at scrutinizing the safety of vaccines for children. The Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Kennedy, called for the task force to be reestablished in a lawsuit against its former leader filed in May.