Letters to the Editor

Editor — We refer to the article entitled ‘Equine influenza: a current reference for vets in practice in the UK’ by Rendle et al. in the September/October 2019 issue of UK-Vet Equine (the ‘Article’) (https://doi.org/10.12968/ukve.2019.3.S3.1). We understand that the Article was designed to be a practical and informative piece for veterinary surgeons. As Marketing Authorisation Holder for ProteqFlu^® and ProteqFlu-Te^® (Boehringer Ingelheim/Merial) we feel obliged and would like to provide further information regarding two segments of the Article as we are concerned that statements included are not consistent with the Summaries of Product Characteristics (SPCs) for Proteq-Flu^® and ProteqFlu-Te^® and that this could potentially be misleading for veterinary surgeons.

Under the heading ‘Efficacy in foals and interaction with maternally derived immunity’ on page 8 of the Article, the authors discuss that ‘the different vaccines are licensed from different ages’ and provide comment that ProteqFlu^® is licensed ‘from 4 months of age’. Whilst it is accurate that ProteqFlu^® is licensed for use from 4 months of age, this is only under specific circumstances. According to the Prote-qFlu^® SPC ‘in case of increased infection risk or insufficient colostrum intake, an additional injection of ProteqFlu^® can be given at the age of 4 months followed by the full vaccination programme (primary vaccination course at 5–6 months of age and 4–6 weeks later followed by revaccination)’. Therefore when following the ProteqFlu^® SPC for all other horses it is advised that the first injection in the primary course not be administered until 5–6 months of age; similar to other available equine influenza vaccines in the UK.