Flu vaccination among younger adults protects mom, dad, seniors over 65

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A new Cleveland Clinic study revealed that when more young adults were vaccinated, seniors over 65 had lesser chance of developing flu and other related illnesses. The findings were published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

"The elderly were less likely to be diagnosed with the flu if they lived in communities where more young, healthy adults had received the flu vaccine," said Cleveland Clinic lead researcher Dr. Glen Taksler, via CBS Philadelphia.  "Even though an elderly person may be doing everything he or she can to help prevent the flu, they can get an extra benefit from other people in the community also getting vaccinated."

Dr. Taksler added that flu vaccine is less effective for seniors. According to a report by WebMD, last year's flu vaccine during the season was not very effective as seniors over 65 were the most affected.

In the published observational study, the researchers looked at samples from over 3 million people ages 18 to 64 as well as vaccination rates and flu illnesses from 2002 to 2010. According to Science Daily, in places with more than 31 percent of adults ages 18 to 64 vaccinated against flu, elderly adults or seniors over the age of 65 were less likely affected by flu-related illnesses by 21 percent.

"Our findings suggest that flu vaccination should be encouraged among low risk adults not just for their own benefit, but also for the benefit of higher risk adults in their community, such as the elderly," said Taksler, according to the report. "In round numbers, we estimated that about one in 20 cases of influenza-related illness in the elderly could have been prevented if more non-elderly adults had received the flu vaccine." 

The report inferred that communities with higher immunization rates had increased the protection for elderly adults who were also immunized. However, this was not observed among young children suggesting that seniors benefit the most from communitywide vaccination.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as reported by Today, the government agency is urging and recommending everyone to get vaccinated against the flu yearly because the effectiveness of the vaccine weakens and because the virus mutates.

"Influenza vaccines are safe, plentiful and we have more vaccine options than ever before-at least one is right for everyone," said Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University, via the report. "People should not wait to get vaccinated if their first choice is not available."

The report adds that flu vaccine options available include the flu shot, intradermal vaccine, nasal spray vaccine and high-dose vaccine for the elderly ages 65 and above.