Some public health officials are advocating mandatory influenza vaccination of healthcare workers, because current vaccination rates are so low and the potential benefits to patients so high, reported Reuters. "A new approach to implementation of healthcare worker vaccination is needed," write Drs. Christopher J. Hoffmann and Trish M. Perl at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, in an editorial in the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. In 2003, vaccination rates among healthcare workers averaged only about 40 percent, Perl told Reuters Health. "People are blown away when we talk about how strong the data are just in preventing mortality (by vaccinating healthcare workers)," Perl said. "Now we need to move on and do something about it." Several measures that hospitals and other healthcare institutions can take will increase vaccination rates among their workers. First of all, Perl said, education is a must. Even today, many healthcare workers, including physicians, believe that they can contract influenza from the vaccination, "which just isn't true." --More 2233 Local Time 1933 GMT
