(Reuters Health) – - The flu vaccine may help prevent flu-related pneumonia, a study suggests.
When researchers looked at patients with pneumonia, those whose pneumonia was related to the flu were more likely to have skipped the flu vaccine, compared to patients with pneumonia from other causes.
Pneumonia can be a serious and common complication of catching the flu, the authors write.
“We knew that influenza vaccines could prevent fever and respiratory symptoms associated with influenza infections, but whether influenza vaccines could prevent pneumonia - a more serious complication of influenza infection - was unclear,” said lead author Dr. Carlos G. Grijalva of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee.
