ATLANTA — The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted for universal immunization against influenza, starting with the 2010-2011 season.
Specifically, the committee voted to recommend influenza immunization for healthy people aged 19-49 years, the only group aged 6 months and older that had not been targeted in previous recommendations.
The committee had considered universal influenza immunization in previous years but had stopped short of endorsing it, said Dr. Anthony Fiore of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Atlanta.
The 2009 pandemic influenza changed the picture.
About 90% of hospitalizations and deaths occurred in individuals younger than 65 years, many of them adults aged 19-49 years.
Moreover, adults aged 19-24 years had been among the targeted priority groups for the 2009-2010 monovalent H1N1 vaccine, he said.
It's likely that 2009 pandemic A(H1N1)–like viruses will continue circulating in 2010-2011, and the proportion of healthy adults now immune is unknown, Dr. Fiore noted.
Another consideration: Obesity, which affects 28% of U.S. adults, was identified as a new independent risk factor for severe illness with the pandemic A(H1N1) strain.
Recommendations of ACIP become recommendations of the CDC once they are accepted by the director of the CDC and the Secretary of Health and Human Services and are published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The committee had considered universal flu immunization previously, but had stopped short of endorsing it.
Source DR. FIORE