CDC recommends pneumonia vaccine for adults 50 and older
Doctors have long urged people ages 50 and older to get a shot to protect against bacterial pneumonia.
Doctors have long urged people ages 50 and older to get a shot to protect against bacterial pneumonia. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now agrees.
On Wednesday, an independent group of advisers to the CDC voted 14 to 1 to lower the age for routine pneumococcal vaccines to 50. CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen almost immediately signed off on the recommendation from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
The shots were previously only recommended for adults 65 and older, and for children 5 and younger.
“I’m very pleased that we’re moving to age 50,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. It’s a good way, he said, to protect those who are at greater risk for complications from bacterial pneumonia, particularly communities of color. Most adults need only one shot for lasting protection. Some might need two, a year apart, depending on their personal risk factors.
“The peak in serious invasive pneumococcal infections occurs earlier in the Black population” at about 55 to 60, he said. “In order to capture as many of those people as possible and prevent those very serious infections, you want to make the recommendation as simple as possible.”
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