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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Implications of the incidence of influenza-like illness in nursing homes for influenza chemoprophylaxis
— descriptive study | | Author(s) | Richard Harling, Andrew Hayward, John M Watson |
| Journal title | British Medical Journal, vol 329, no 7467, 18 September 2004 |
| Pages | pp 663-664 |
| Source | http://www.bmj.com |
| Keywords | Influenza ; Immunisation ; Drugs ; Nursing homes. |
| Annotation | National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines issued in September 2003 state that oseltamivir should be given to all residents of nursing and residential homes each time a single case of influenza-like illness (ILI) is recognised in a resident or staff member, and when flu is known to be circulating in the community. Nurses in 48 nursing homes used a standard proforma to record data daily about ILI in residents. This article presents the results. Most residents were aged 65+, 70% were women, 34% were classified as "high dependency", and 75% had received flu vaccination. Weekly incidence of ILI varied from 15.2 to 30 cases per 1,000 residents. If these results applied to all 500,000 residents in nursing and residential homes in England, then at least 360,000 courses of oseltamivir should have been offered last winter, which would require substantial resources. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-041004207 A |
| Classmark | CJM: LLF: LLD: LHB * |
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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