Flu Vaccine Reduces ICU Visits for Kids, Death in Adults - MedPage Today

At the 2019 IDWeek conference, a session on influenza vaccines highlighted two studies -- one that determined whether outcomes were less severe among vaccinated adults, and one that assessed the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing hospitalization in children.

In this exclusive MedPage Today video, Shikha Garg, MD, MPH, and Angela Campbell, MD, MPH, both medical officers with the Influenza Division of the CDC in Atlanta, described their respective studies.

Following is a transcript of their remarks:

Garg: We looked at adults hospitalized with influenza in the Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Network or FluSurv-NET. We analyzed data from over 40,000 adults hospitalized with flu over 5 seasons from 2013-14 to 2017-18 across over 250 acute-care hospitals, over 13 states. What we did was look at severe outcomes like death, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, and pneumonia in those who were vaccinated compared to those who were not vaccinated prior to their hospitalization.

What we found was that in adults 18 to 64 years of age who had the H1N1 virus, those who were vaccinated were associated with reduced odds of death of 36%, mechanical ventilation of 34%, ICU admission of 17%, and pneumonia of 17%. They also had a reduced ICU length of stay. Then in the adults that were 65 years and older who had the H1N1 virus, vaccination was associated with a reduced odds of mechanical ventilation by nearly half and ICU admission by nearly a third. They also had a shorter hospital length of stay.

Campbell: I think the major take-home point of our study is we showed that children who received influenza vaccination had a reduced likelihood of being hospitalized with the flu by half. Just to explain a little bit about what we did: This was a study in the New Vaccine Surveillance Network or NVSN, which is a network of seven pediatric hospitals that enroll children with respiratory illness. About 10% of those children had flu, and we looked at the ratio of children who had flu and didn't have flu and the vaccination ratio in each of those. From that, we can see how well the vaccine worked to prevent hospitalization with flu. Over the 2-season period, 2016-17 and 2017-18, we saw it reduced the likelihood of hospitalization by half.

Garg: What this study really did was it increased the evidence base for the benefits of vaccination. I think there's a general sense that the influenza vaccine might reduce the severity of illness in people who get vaccinated but who still get sick. There haven't been that many studies that have looked at this. Those that have, had shown mixed results. Our study, I think, really did show across a very large geographic area over 5 seasons that in adults, that flu vaccine was associated with a reduced risk of these severe outcomes.

1969-12-31T19:00:00-0500

last updated 11.27.2019

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