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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Effects of influenza vaccination of health-care workers on mortality of elderly people in long-term care
— a randomised controlled trial | | Author(s) | William F Carman, Alexander G Elder, Lesley A Wallace |
| Journal title | The Lancet, vol 355, no 9198, 8 January 2000 |
| Pages | pp 93-97 |
| Keywords | Influenza ; Immunisation ; Medical workers ; Geriatric hospitals ; Death ; Patients ; Clinical surveys. |
| Annotation | Vaccination of health care workers has been claimed to prevent nosocomial infection of older patients in long-term care. This research aimed to find out whether vaccination of health care workers can lower mortality and frequency of virologically proven influenza in older patients. Health care workers in 20 long-term geriatric hospitals were randomly offered or not offered influenza vaccine. All deaths among patients were recorded over 6 months in the winter of 1996/97. A random sample of 50% of patients was selected for virological surveillance for influenza, with swabs taken every 2 weeks during the epidemic period. Vaccine uptake was 50%-59% in hospitals where healthcare workers were routinely offered vaccine, compared with 4%-9% in those where they were not. The uncorrected rate of mortality in patients was 102 (13.6%) of 749 in vaccine hospitals, compared with 152 (22.4%) of 688 in no-vaccine hospitals. The groups did not differ for proportions of patients positive for influenza infection. Vaccination of health-care workers was associated with a substantial decrease in mortality among patients. However, virological surveillance showed no associated decrease in non-fatal influenza infection in patients. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-000113201 A |
| Classmark | CJM: LLF: QT: LDA: CW: LF: 3G * |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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