FAU researchers confront new U.S. and global challenges in vaccinations of adults
Over the past decade, decreasing vaccination rates now threaten the huge beneficial impacts of vaccinations in the United States and globally.
The barriers are multifactorial and include increasing vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. In a review published online ahead of print in The American Journal of Medicine, researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine and colleagues discuss new clinical and public health challenges in vaccinations of U.S. adults.
The authors note that healthcare providers in the U.S. also face major challenges in achieving high vaccination rates against COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza, which confers particularly high risks among the elderly and immunocompromised patients. They caution about potential concerns relating to the recent emergence of a highly virulent strain of influenza (H5N1) in China.
Although it was eliminated in 2000, the authors also discuss the clinical and public health challenges of measles in the U.S. and worldwide. Recent outbreaks in areas with low vaccination rates, exacerbated by more recent vaccine hesitancy, have led to a loss of herd immunity. By July 2023, 116 out of 195 countries reported lower measles vaccination rates. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that vaccinations since 1974 have prevented about 154 million premature deaths, with 101 million of those being infants.
