Vaccine-Preventable Diseases in Older Adults

Abstract

Older adults are at an increased risk of vaccine-preventable diseases partly because of physiologic changes in the immune and other body systems related to age and/or accumulating comorbidities that increase the vulnerability to infections and decrease the response to vaccines. Strategies to improve the response to vaccines include using a higher antigenic dose (such as in the high-dose inactivated influenza vaccines) as well as adding adjuvants (such as MF59 in the adjuvanted inactivated influenza vaccine).

Keywords: Herpes zoster; Immunization schedule; Influenza; Older adults; Streptococcus pneumoniae.