Repeated influenza vaccination of healthy children and adults:
borrow now, pay later?
Epidemiol Infect. 2006 Feb;134(1):63-70.
Repeated
influenza vaccination of healthy children and adults: borrow now, pay
later?
Epidemiology and Information Sciences, U707,
Institut national de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale, Paris, FranceGroupe
Hospitalier - Universitaire Est, Paris, France.
A growing number of
publications are recommending annual influenza vaccination of healthy children
and adults. However, the long-term consequences of repeated influenza
vaccination are unknown.
We used a simple
model of recurrent influenza infection to assess the likely impact of various
repeated influenza vaccination scenarios. The model was based on a Markovian
framework and was fitted on annual incidence rates of influenza infection by
age. We found that natural influenza infection reduced the risk of
being re-infected by 15.4% (95% confidence interval 7.1-23.0).
Various scenarios
of repeated influenza vaccination were then simulated and compared with a
reference scenario where vaccination is given from age 65 years onwards.
We show that repeated
vaccination at a young age substantially increases the risk of influenza in
older age, by a factor ranging between 1.2 (vaccination after 50 years) to 2.4
(vaccination from birth)
These findings have important implications
for influenza vaccination policies. PMID: 16409652 [PubMed - in process]
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