A Canberra pathologist says a more expensive vaccine would not have helped Australia's record flu season even if it was available because it was still based on a mis-matched strain.
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It comes after the country's chief medical officer rubbished claims Australians had been given a cheap option.
The ACT has had almost double the confirmed cases of flu this year compared to all of 2016, a trend similar to what has been seen across the country.
There have been almost 3000 clinically confirmed cases of the flu in the ACT so far this year, up on the 1587 cases in 2016.
A News Corp report earlier this week suggested Australians had missed out on a more expensive flu vaccine that was four times the dosage.
But Australia's chief medical officer Professor Brendan Murphy hit back at claims labelling it "utterly false".
He said the two vaccines mentioned were not available in Australia because the companies had not registered them for use with the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
"The flu vaccines chosen this year were the best available in Australian market, selected by medical experts in Australia and around the world," he said.
"They are the same vaccines which are available and used in the UK, US and other countries and the same vaccines available on the private market in Australia.
"At the request of the Health Minister Greg Hunt, I am working on ways to strengthen the National Immunisation Program, including holding talks with manufacturers on new and strengthened vaccines."
Professor Peter Collignon, from the ANU school of medicine, backed the government's stance, saying even if the more expensive vaccines with higher doses were available, they would not have been significantly more effective.
"This year's vaccine didn't work very well for the predominant strain," he said.
"If there was a mismatch, having four times the dose of something not very effective would probably not work well either and just give you more side effects."
He said one of the reasons the vaccine was not very effective was because developers made the wrong guess about which flu strain would be most prominent during Australia's winter.
Dr Collignon said for a flu vaccine to be generally more effective, a broader one would have to be developed that worked in a similar way to the measles vaccine.
"We have to rely much more on basic infection control; using hand hygiene, making sure if you cough it doesn't splatter, should we do what a whole lot of asian countries do and use masks?" he said.
"My own view is that the flu vaccine is not one of our best vaccines, but if you're in a risk group it's a good idea to have it."
