Fact Sheet - President Donald J. Trump Is Working to Modernize and Improve Influenza Vaccines

We want a safe and healthy future for every American family.

President Donald J. Trump

MODERNIZING INFLUENZA VACCINES: President Donald J. Trump is safeguarding public health by helping ensure Americans have access to effective influenza vaccines.

• Today, President Trump signed an executive order to modernize influenza vaccines and help protect more Americans through vaccination.
• At President Trump's direction, the Administration will work to promote new technologies to improve vaccine manufacturing and effectiveness.
  • This will reduce reliance on more time-consuming, egg-based vaccine production.
  • Improving the speed of production will enable experts to better match vaccines to actively circulating viruses, an important piece of making the vaccines more effective.
  • The Administration will advance the development of new, more effective vaccines.
• The Trump Administration will also work to increase Americans' access to vaccines by reducing barriers to seasonal flu vaccine services.
• To help put these objectives into action, President Trump is establishing a task force to identify policy priorities and monitor progress.

PROTECTING LIVES THROUGH PREVENTION: Influenza vaccines are vitally important to disease prevention, yet current production methods need to be improved.

• Influenza vaccines are the best way to save lives, reduce the illness severity, and prevent influenza infections in the first place.
  • During the 2017–2018 flu season, influenza vaccinations prevented up to 7.1 million illnesses, 3.7 million medical visits, and 109,000 hospitalizations.
  • A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that vaccines prevented more than 40,000 flu-associated deaths over a nine-year period.
• It is especially important to be able to rapidly produce well-matched influenza vaccines using scalable technologies in the event of a future influenza pandemic.
• Despite their important role in safeguarding the health of the American people, influenza vaccines are currently produced using more time-consuming, egg-based technology.
  • More rapid non-egg-based production methods would give experts more time to select the most relevant strains.

PROMOTING PUBLIC HEALTH: Improving the influenza vaccine is part of President Trump's longstanding effort to combat public health threats and promote quality care for all Americans.

• President Trump has released a National Biodefense Strategy and a Global Health Security Strategy to help combat biological threats and pandemics.
• President Trump has made it a priority to increase the quality and accessibility of care for American patients.
  • This year, the President launched a kidney health initiative to help prevent kidney failure, improve treatment options, and expand access to life-saving transplants.
  • The Trump Administration is working to encourage new, innovative approaches to treating childhood cancer.
  • President Trump launched an initiative to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic in America over the next decade.
  • The Administration is supporting research on new treatments for opioid addiction.