Vaccinate Kids to Stop Flu in Community

March 9, 2010 -- New research confirms that giving flu shots to large
numbers of school-age children can protect the community at large.
The finding adds to evidence in favor of so-called "herd immunity" -- the
idea that vaccinating the healthy and those most likely to spread the flu can
have a dramatic impact on overall transmission rates.
The study was conducted in rural western Canada among the Hutterites, a
branch of the Anabaptist Christian denomination. Like the Amish and Mennonites,
Hutterites live in distinct communities and have limited exposure to the
outside world.
During the fall of 2008, large numbers of children between the ages of 3 and
15 from some Hutterite colonies got flu shots, while children in other colonies
were not vaccinated against the flu.
As a result, about half as many flu cases occurred during the first six
months of 2009 in the colonies where flu shots were given.
The study appears in the March 10 issue of the Journal of the American
Medical Association.
"In influenza, we have traditionally vaccinated people with the highest risk
for complications, such as the elderly and those with compromised immune
systems," study researcher Mark Loeb, MD, of McMaster University in Ontario
tells WebMD.
"This study shows that when you immunize healthy children and adolescents
who do not have a high risk for complications, you indirectly protect those at
highest risk who might not be able to mount a good response to the
vaccine."
Protecting the Community From Flu
In the United States, flu kills an estimated 36,000 people each year and
200,000 are hospitalized because of complications from influenza
infection.
The elderly and immunocompromised are most vulnerable to flu, along with
pregnant women and babies too young to be vaccinated.
Previous research has suggested that immunizing the healthy young can reduce
influenza transmissions. But the study by Loeb and colleagues is the first in
which some people were randomly assigned to either get a flu vaccine or remain
unvaccinated.
The Hutterite colonies offered a unique opportunity for this type of study.
Each colony includes approximately 60 to 120 people, but families live in
individual homes. The children attend Hutterite schools from ages 3 to 15.
The study included close to 950 Canadian school-aged children and 2,326
other community members from 49 Hutterite colonies.
Children in some of the colonies were given the flu vaccine, while children
in other colonies were given hepatitis A vaccine instead of flu shots.
Based on computer models, the researchers hypothesized that 70% of the
children in a colony would need to be vaccinated to protect the general
community. The actual average coverage in colonies where children got the flu
shots was 83%.
During the 2008-2009 flu season, 4.5% of the population in the colonies
where children were vaccinated against the flu got influenza, compared to 10.6%
of the population in the colonies in which the hepatitis A vaccine was
given.
"The risk of getting the flu was around 60% lower for people who lived in
colonies where the kids got the flu shots," Loeb tells WebMD.
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