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Flu vaccines not very effective in the elderly, doctors find
Sept. 21, 2005
Courtesy The Lancet
and World Science staff
Vaccines against influenza are modestly effective for elderly people in long-term care facilities, but for those living outside of such homes their effectiveness is even less, researchers have found.
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A typical flu virus is shown
"sliced" in half in this diagram to show the insides. It
contains genes for making copies of itself on the inside, and
"spikes" that help it attach to a host cell on the outside.
(Courtesy National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, U.S.)
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The study was published online on September 21 by the medical journal The Lancet.
Flu vaccines are widely recommended by doctors, the researchers noted. In 2000, 40 of the 51 developed or rapidly developing countries officially recommended vaccination for all individuals aged 60-65 or older. Nonetheless, their effectiveness doesn’t appear to be as strong as is widely assumed.
Tom Jefferson of Cochrane Vaccine Field in Rome, Italy, and colleagues identified and assessed 64 comparative studies of the effectiveness of influenza vaccines in individuals aged 65 years or older.
Combining data from 15 studies, they found that in elderly individuals living in the community, vaccines based on inactivated flu viruses were not effective against
influenza, but they did prevent up to 30 percent of hospitalisations for pneumonia.
Combining data from twenty-nine studies, they found that in elderly people in long-term care facilities, inactivated influenza vaccines prevented up to
42 percent of deaths caused by influenza and pneumonia.
Therefore, while vaccines do have an effect, “the usefulness of vaccines in the community is modest,” the researchers wrote.
“We need a more comprehensive and perhaps more effective strategy in controlling acute respiratory infections,” Jefferson said in an email. More focus should be placed on the context in which flus arise, he added, which means paying greater attention worldwide to personal hygiene and adequate food, water and
sanitation.
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