Vaccination remains the recommended strategy to reduce the amount and the severity of complications of influenza infections (level of evidence 1).

Vaccination is performed by using standard inactivated vaccine (level of evidence 1).

Every year the GP should offer vaccination to all of his/her patients with diabetes, COPD, chronic heart failure or with impaired immunity (level of evidence 1).
If 70% of these risk groups have been vaccinated, he/she should also proactively offer the vaccine to all patients older than 64 years. At the same time he/she can then inform these patients about the polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccine (level of evidence 3).
The GP should consult the specialist in attendance before offering the vaccine to HIV-seropositive patients.

The GP should follow a staged approach: by offering the influenza vaccine opportunistically, then by sending out invitations and finally by phoning non-responders (level of evidence 1).

Before administrating the vaccine, the GP should always ask for hypersensitivity to egg-proteins and thiomersal (level of evidence 3).

There is still no clear-cut place for neuraminidase-inhibitors within the preventive management of high-risk groups (level of evidence 3).