Highlights
- •Influenza vaccination reduced primary care presentations for ILI.
- •The pooled estimated reduction over 4 years was 24% (95%CI 11-34%).
- •Influenza vaccination also reduced antibiotic prescribing for ILI.
- •However, this was only observed in patients without comorbidities and aged 40-65yrs.
Abstract
Background
Evidence on the effectiveness of influenza vaccine in preventing antibiotic prescriptions
for influenza-like illness (ILI) in adults is limited.
Methods
A primary care-based case-control study was conducted to estimate influenza vaccine
effectiveness (VE) against influenza-like illness (ILI) and antibiotic prescribing
for ILI in adults aged ≥40 years. Cases were patients diagnosed with ILI from 1st June to 30th September in each year, 2015-2018; a subset of those with ILI prescribed antibiotics
was also defined. Controls were patients attending a practice who did not receive
an ILI diagnosis. Generalised estimating equations were used to calculate adjusted
VE overall, by age (<65 versus ≥65 years) and comorbidity status.
Results
The number of ILI cases varied from 558 in 2018 to 2901 in 2017 and controls from
86618 in 2015 to 136763 in 2017. Over 4 years the pooled estimate of VE was 24% (95%CI,
11% to 34%) against ILI and 15% (95%CI, -3% to 29%) against antibiotic prescription
for ILI. Influenza vaccine was effective in reducing ILI with an associated antibiotic
prescriptions in patients aged <65 years (VE=23%, 95%CI, 3% to 38%) and if no comorbidities
were recorded (VE=22%, 95%CI, 1% to 39%) but not in other subgroups.
Conclusions
Influenza vaccine reduced the likelihood of antibiotic prescriptions for ILI in low-risk
adults (40-64 years and those without comorbidities).
Keywords
Abbreviations:
ILI (Influenza-like illness), VE (Vaccine effectiveness)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: October 23, 2022
Accepted:
October 18,
2022
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 The British Infection Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
