Vaccine May Lower Risk of Flu by 58% in Older Adults

Adults ages 60 years and older are 28% to 58% less likely to develop the flu after receiving a seasonal flu shot, according to a recent study.

For the study, researchers evaluated test-negative design case-control studies that compared older adults that had similar health care-seeking behavior.
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The researchers used generalized linear mixed models (adapted for test-negative design case-control studies) to estimate the effectiveness of seasonal influenza vaccine based on epidemic conditions and vaccine match.

Investigators found that vaccination had a significant effect in older adults during regional or widespread outbreaks but did not have a major impact during local virus activity, both regardless of virus match.

“Our findings show that in elderly people, irrespective of vaccine match, seasonal influenza vaccination is effective against laboratory confirmed influenza during epidemic seasons. Efforts should be renewed worldwide to further increase uptake of the influenza vaccine in the elderly population,” said the study’s authors.

The complete study is published in the November issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

-Michelle Canales

Reference:

1. Darvishian M, Bijlsma MJ, Hak E, et al. Effectiveness of seasonal influenza vaccine in community-dwelling elderly people: a meta-analysis of test-negative design case-control studies. Lancet Infect Dis. 2014 November [epub ahead of print] doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(14)70960-0.