Caregivers Pose Deadly Threat if Spreading the Flu

WASHINGTON — Doctors, nurses and other health-care workers are major sources of influenza infections that kill thousands of elderly nursing home residents every year, a recent study found.

Dr. Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said health-care workers are lax in getting annual flu shots, and only about half of people over 65 receive the vaccine. Even fewer of the elderly have received shots to protect against pneumonia infections.

This results in thousands of deaths that could have been prevented, he said.

“The very people who are charged with protecting the elderly from the flu may bring the virus into nursing homes and expose residents to this disease and its life-threatening complications,” Poland said.

Poland said a British study of 1,059 residents at 12 facilities for long-term care found the death rate among patients dropped from 17% to 10% when health-care workers received annual flu shots.

“Just immunizing the health-care workers gives significant protection for these patients,” he said.

About 25% of health-care workers become infected with flu every year, he said. Yet surveys show that only about 30% of doctors, nurses and attendants annually get flu shots.

People protected by the vaccine are much less likely to spread the virus to others, experts say.

People older than 65, particularly those already in poor health, are very susceptible to flu and its potentially lethal side effect--pneumonia. Poland said many elderly people who get the flu go on to develop pneumonia, and about 10% of those patients die.

Dr. Jay Butler of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta cited an alarming rise in strains of pneumonia-causing bacterium that do not respond to antibiotic treatment.