Adult vaccines

We are all familiar with childhood vaccination, but we tend to disregard the importance of vaccination once we leave school.

Vaccines are available to all those travelling to countries where the risk of diseases such as typhoid, hepatitis A and B and certain strains of meningococcal meningitis is high, as well as for polio, diphtheria and yellow fever. Preventing the importation of these diseases into the UK is an important public health measure and vaccination is the best way to approach this.

Currently, the UK does not have a universal vaccination policy against hepatitis B. Following the WHO’s call for mass vaccination, many countries do and it is imperative that we continue to review our current situation. Hepatitis is the ninth most common cause of death worldwide.10 Ten to 30 per cent of chronic carriers will eventually die of the consequences of the disease – either cirrhosis of the liver or liver cancer.11

Regional budgetary constraints will always influence the implementation of vaccination strategies. ‘In times of increasing health care costs, and faced with limited health care budgets, optimal ways of dividing funds among various health care provisions must be found, regardless of how convinced one may be about the importance of hepatitis B immunisation’.12

Vaccination can help the elderly and frail to avoid flu and pneumococcal infection. A more targeted use of these vaccines could help alleviate the annual winter bed crisis made worse by hospital admissions of patients suffering from the complications of these infections.

In 2000, the UK Department of Health changed the vaccination policy for flu vaccine to include all those aged 65 and over on the basis of the benefits to public health and a more effective use of NHS resources. Many clinicians believe that there are good grounds for similar action on the prevention of pneumococcal disease by vaccination.