NIH Research Matters May 26, 2006 Higher Dose of Seasonal Flu
Vaccine Provides Extra Protection A new clinical trial suggests
there may be a simple way to provide elderly Americans with
extra protection against the seasonal flu: give them a higher
dose of vaccine. Seasonal influenza, or seasonal flu, accounts
for some 36,000 deaths and more than 200,000 hospitalizations
every year in the United States. It's among America's most
lethal killers because the virus infects so many people — 5 to
20% of the population every year. Previous seasonal influenza
vaccine studies have found that the higher the levels of the
virus-fighting molecules called antibodies a person produces,
the better they're protected against infection. A team of
researchers from the Baylor College of Medicine and sanofi
pasteur, the vaccines business of the sanofi-aventis Group, set
out to test whether elderly people could be given higher doses
of vaccine safely and whether the higher doses would increase
their levels of antibody. The trial, w