Annual flu shot benefits adults with diabetes

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

NEW YORK, Aug 5 (Reuters) Like other high-risk groups, adults with diabetes benefit from having a flu vaccination every year, regardless of age, Dutch researchers confirm.

The team reports that both first and repeat influenza vaccinations reduce all-cause mortality and hospitalizations for complications of respiratory infections.

The percentage of adult diabetics who get a flu shot ''remains low,'' note Dr Ingrid Looijmans-Van den Akker from University Medical Center, Utrecht and colleagues in the medical journal Diabetes Care, perhaps because of uncertainty about the vaccine's effectiveness in people with diabetes.

The researchers looked into the effectiveness of first and repeat influenza vaccinations in 9238 adults with diabetes during the 1999-2000 influenza A epidemic in the Netherlands.

Forty-four per cent were between the ages of 18 and 64 years old and 56 per cent were 65 years or older.

Overall, 131 hospitalizations and 61 deaths were recorded during the study period. These 192 cases were compared with 1561 matched ''controls'' within the group of diabetes patients who remained well.

One hundred forty-one of the 192 diabetic subjects (73.4 percent) and 1339 of the 1561 controls (85.8 per cent) were vaccinated against influenza.

''Influenza vaccination was associated with a 56 per cent reduction in any complication, a 54 per cent reduction in hospitalizations, and 58 per cent reduction in deaths,'' the investigators report.

There was no significant difference in vaccine efficacy between those vaccinated for the first time and those who received a repeat vaccination.

These data, the investigators say, support the value of annual influenza vaccination in adults with diabetes, as is currently recommended. They call for renewed efforts to increase vaccination rates in this high-risk group.

REUTERS MS ND0924

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