Too few U.S. adults get their shots, survey shows

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Only 2 percent of U.S. adults last year got a shot that can protect them from painful bouts of shingles, health officials said on Wednesday in a study that shows what they call unacceptably low rates of adult vaccination against a range of diseases.

Adults also failed to get vaccines that can protect them against tetanus, whooping cough and even influenza -- despite years of campaigning, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

The CDC surveyed 7,000 adults as part of its annual look at childhood vaccinations and found very low levels of adult vaccination.

It found that most adults cannot name more than one or two diseases that they can get a vaccine to prevent. Just under half could name the influenza vaccine, and at the most, 18 percent could name each of any of the other vaccines.

Only 1.9 percent of those polled had been vaccinated against herpes zoster -- the virus that causes shingles, which can cause a painful, blistering rash and sometimes months of severe pain.

"There are more than 1 million new cases of shingles in the United States every year; over half in people 60 and older," said Dr. Michael Oxman of the University of California, San Diego, and the San Diego Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

"The vaccine not only helps reduce the risk of getting shingles, but it reduces the incidence of postherpetic neuralgia, a long-lasting shingles pain syndrome that constitutes the most common serious and debilitating complication of shingles."

And just 2 percent said they had received a combination vaccination called "Tdap" for tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis, or whooping cough.