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Article: Outbreak drives home need for flu shots: about 72% of people 65 and older get the flu shot; fewer than 50% of health care workers get it.(NEWS)
- Article from:
- Family Practice News
- Article date:
- May 15, 2009
- Author:
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CHICAGO -- Even if history records the 2009-H1N1 influenza epidemic as mild, its appearance highlights the need to improve seasonal-flu vaccination rates among the elderly and the health care workers who take care of them, said speakers during an influenza symposium.
Vaccination rates among people aged 65 years and older have remained stagnant since the late 1990s, at about two-thirds of that population, despite Medicare coverage of the influenza vaccine, said geriatric nurse practitioner Lynn Chilton, DNSC, during the annual meeting of the American Society of Geriatrics.
For 2007-2008, 71.2% of people aged 65 years or more were vaccinated (Vaccine ...