Influenza in elderly people in care homes

doi:10.1136/bmj.39050.408044.80

BMJ 2006;333:1229-1230 (16 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.39050.408044.80

Editorials

Influenza in elderly people in care homes

New evidence strengthens policy to vaccinate healthcare workers

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Influenza causes substantial mortality and morbidityin elderly people, particularly those with chronic diseases.Excess deaths during influenza epidemics are not limited toobvious causes such as influenza and pneumonia but also includecirculatory and other respiratory causes.^w1 People in elderlycare homes and hospital wards are at particular risk, becausehigh risk individuals are concentrated in an environment susceptibleto the spread of respiratory pathogens. In this week's BMJ,Hayward and colleagues report the impact of vaccinating healthcareworkers in elderly peoples homes on mortality in residents.¹

Most developed countries offer elderly peoplevaccination against predicted influenza strains for the nextseason.² However, the age related decline of immune functionreduces the ability of elderly patients to respond to the influenzavaccine,³ and the vaccine is less effective in patients withchronic diseases.⁴ Also, as most of the evidence in elderlypeople comes from database cohort studies, effects may . . . [Full text of this article]

Rachel E Jordan, senior scientist (r.e.jordan@bham.ac.uk)¹, Jeremy I Hawker, head of public health development²

¹ Health Protection Research and Development Unit, Health Protection Agency, Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, ² Health Protection Agency, London WC1V 7PP

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Effectiveness of an influenza vaccine programme for care home staff to prevent death, morbidity, and health service use among residents: cluster randomised controlled trial: Andrew C Hayward, Richard Harling, Sally Wetten, Anne M Johnson, Susan Munro, Julia Smedley, Shahed Murad, and John M Watson
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