It is highly effective in young healthy adults. We think about giving it primarily in adults greater than 65, cardiopulmonary disease, immunocompromised patients, but it is highly effective in young adults as well. A big study in the New England Journal of Medicine a few years ago demonstrated less respiratory illness, fewer days lost from work in a healthy adult population that did not meet the typical indications. It is less immunogenic in older, susceptible persons. And once again, you can't get the flu from the flu shot.
Pneumococcal infection is one of our more under-used vaccines.
There are 40,000 deaths annually from pneumococcal infection, many of these occurring during the flu season as a result of infection with bacterial pneumonias following on the heels of influenza. One-half of the pneumococcal deaths are preventable. The highest case fatality rates are in the very young and in the very old. Hepatitis B is a very common disease around the world - less common in the United States but easily preventable and an effective, safe vaccine is available. Because of recombinant DNA technology, no live virus is in it, unlike earlier strains of the vaccine, which did not have live virus, but were culled from populations where there was concern about HIV infection and Hepatitis A vaccine has been available for the last few years.