The flu vaccine could be doing a lot more than just inoculating patients against influenza — it might be playing a significant role in combating influenza-related pneumonia as well, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"We estimated that about 57 percent of influenza-related pneumonia hospitalization could be prevented through influenza vaccination," Carlos Grijalva, MD, MPH, associate professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and co-author of the study, said in a statement. "The finding indicates that influenza vaccines not only prevent the symptoms of influenza, including fever, respiratory symptoms and body aches, but also more serious complications of influenza, such as pneumonia that requires hospitalization."
The researchers looked at data from 2,767 patients hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia during three consecutive influenza seasons between 2010 and 2012. Six percent of these patients had laboratory confirmed influenza and the remaining 94 percent were flu-free. They then looked at vaccination histories for the two groups of patients and found that 29 percent of the influenza-free pneumonia group had a current flu vaccination, while only 17 percent of the influenza pneumonia group had a current vaccination.
The investigators did note the flu vaccine's effectiveness in preventing pneumonia hospitalization for older adults and for patients with immunosuppressive conditions seemed lower.