A new study suggests that the flu vaccine could not only prevent influenza, but ward off pneumonia as well, according to Reuters.
Previous studies have suggested that flu vaccines could somehow reduce the incidence of flu-associated pneumonia. However, there has been no specific study investigating the effect of flu shots on pneumonia that occurs as a complication of flu, and this is what the researchers of the present study focused on.
"We knew that influenza vaccines could prevent fever and respiratory symptoms associated with influenza infections, but whether influenza vaccines could prevent pneumonia -- a more serious complication of influenza infection -- was unclear," lead author Dr. Carlos G. Grijalva of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine told Reuters.
The researchers gathered information on 2,767 children and adult patients hospitalized for community-acquired pneumonia from January 2010 to July 2012. The data was taken from the Etiology of Pneumonia in the Community (EPIC) study.
They compared the cases of flu-associated pneumonia with other pneumonia cases and found that 28 of 162 patients (17 percent) with flu-associated pneumonia were vaccinated. From the control group, 766 of 2,605 patients (29 percent) with pneumonia that is not associated with flu were vaccinated.
Based on calculations, the researchers said that the flu vaccine was 57 percent effective in preventing pneumonia.
The authors said that "the estimated odds ratio of vaccination between cases and controls, and derived vaccine effectiveness from this study, could be used to inform subsequent estimations of the national number of hospitalizations for pneumonia averted by influenza vaccination," according to a press release.
The study was published in the Oct. 5 online issue of JAMA.
