Previous Exposure to Flu Viruses May Protect the Elderly
- By BSTQ Staff
A new global study of flu pandemics shows that, often, a large number of elderly individuals are immune to influenza because their bodies had been infected with a similar virus in the past. The research is a follow-up to Dr. Thomas Reichert’s (of the Entropy Research Institute in Lincoln, Mass.) study with the National Institutes of Health published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2005 that showed flu shots don’t work well in the elderly. In fact, the study showed that as more and more elderly got flu shots, death rates didn’t go down, they went up. The study’s authors said they “could not correlate increasing vaccination coverage after 1980 with declining mortality rates in any age group.”
The new study, published in the Dec. 12, 2012, edition of BMC Medicine, looked at all five influenza pandemics of the past 100 years. Findings showed that during the 2009 influenza pandemic, most people over age 62 were immune because the flu virus closely resembled viruses they’d been exposed to before 1947. In 1969, people over age 78 had immunity, and in 1918, it was those over age 45 to 55 who were best protected.
According to Dr. Reichert, the “immunity of past experience” has important implications. In pandemic seasons, flu shots and other resources could be diverted to younger people who aren’t naturally protected, and businesses could consider cultivating a cadre of retired elderly to bring into the workforce in the event of a severe flu pandemic.
