Adult smokers in the age group of 19 to sixty-four years are recommended pneumococcal jabs as they are more susceptible to lung and respiratory diseases, announced the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
This is the first time vaccine has been recommended specifically for adult smokers. The committee also recommended smokers to receive counseling so that they can kick the butt.
The Chief medical officer for the American Lung Association, Dr. Norman H. Edelman, said, "The risk of getting pneumococcal pneumonia among smokers is substantially greater than among nonsmokers, so it makes sense to recommend that smokers get the vaccine."
“But that in no way protects you from all of the terrible things that smoking will do," he added.
Dr. Pekka Nuorti, a medical epidemiologist with national immunization program at the CDC, said that the exact reason why people who smoke are more susceptible to infections is yet not known but according to some experts it has to do with smoking-caused damage allowing bacteria to more easily attach to the lungs and windpipe.
Pneumococcal vaccines help protect against severe infections due to “streptococcus pneumonia”, a bacterium that causes pneumonia, meningitis, and infections of the bloodstream, middle ear and sinuses. Pneumococcal infections are the most common cause of invasive bacterial infection. It is considered as the number one killer among vaccine preventable diseases.
Past studies show that people smoking cigarettes are four times more likely to suffer from pneumococcal disease as compared to the nonsmokers. Smoking even a single cigarette daily can double the risk of pneumococcal pneumonia. It means the more cigarettes a person smokes a day, the higher the odds of the person developing such an illness.
Nearly 30 percent of Brit adults under the age of 65 smoke, according to the recent research conducted by Imperial College in London, while approximately one-fifth of adults in the US smoke cigarettes.
At present, the CDC guidelines recommend pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPV) for:
* Kids under age of 2 years.
* People over age 65.
* People suffering from chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart and kidney disease etc.
* People with low resistance to infection.
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