Pneumonia vaccine vastly underutilized.

Although new penicillin-resistant strains of pneumonias have emerged recently, only a fraction of people most susceptible to pneumococcal pneumonia are immunized, points out Joseph F. Plouffe, professor of internal medicine, Ohio State University. In a study of hospital patients admitted with respiratory problems, just one-fifth had received the vaccine for pneumococcal pneumonia, the most common cause of pneumonia requiring hospitalization.

Those at greatest risk of developing this type of pneumonia are people over the age of 64; persons with a serious chronic health condition such as lung disease, heart failure, or diabetes; an individual with a disease that compromises his or her immune system such as AIDS; and those with influenza or other respiratory difficulties.

One-third of all patients hospitalized with pneumonia each year have pneumococcal pneumonia, and 25,000 of those will die from it. The disease can be spread through the air, when one person coughs near another.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that those at the highest risk for developing this form of pneumonia be immunized every six years. To find out how many of those at risk actually get immunizations, Plouffe surveyed 4,578 patients with respiratory problems admitted to 10 hospitals in central Ohio. He found that 19% of those 64 years or older were vaccinated, with African-Americans having significantly lower rates of vaccination than whites (four percent vs. 21%). Elderly patients with additional underlying medical conditions (such as lung disease, heart failure, and diabetes) were three times more likely to be vaccinated than otherwise healthy elderly patients. Among individuals less than 65 years old who have...