Officials require healthcare employees to get their flu shots as a way to lower patient risk. However, PLOS One published a study that challenges a flu shot's efficacy in mitigating such risk, STAT reports.
Researchers analyzed four cluster randomized controlled trials that took place at long-term care facilities. In past studies, researchers said calculations showed for every eight vaccinated staff members, this could avert one influenza death.
However, STAT reports if the calculation held true, the 1.7 million vaccinated healthcare employees in long-term care throughout the nation would prevent 212,500 flu-related deaths each year. The study in PLOS challenges this claim as there are not that many flu-related deaths in the United States.
CDC estimates say the flu kills between 3,000 and 49,000 Americans annually. Thus, if researchers applied the previous study's calculation to 5.5 million hospital workers, mandatory flu shots should avert 687,500 deaths each year, which totals more than the number of Americans who died during the 1918 Spanish flu. The Spanish flu killed almost 675,000 Americans.
Michael Osterholm, PhD, director of Minneapolis-based University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy, told STAT, "The study today does not refute that vaccination could have some impact on reducing transmission from infected health care workers to patients. But it clearly shows there's no well-conducted study that demonstrates that at this time. Our public policy should be guided as such."
