Respiratory infection season is almost upon us, and older people in particular should pay attention to their vaccine status, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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If you’re an older adult or someone with chronic disease, now is a good time to consider getting vaccinated for respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. That’s according to Johns Hopkins pharmacist Victoria DeJaco.

Dejaco: It used to be that people over the age of 60 recommended to get the RSV vaccine and then also like the last month of pregnancy. Now they've lowered it down to 50 with risk factors. There are certain manufacturers that are only allowed for particular age groups.  :16

Ditto for the pneumonia vaccine.

Dejaco: There's been an updated Prevnar, seeing the Prevnar 20 which is a one and done shot. What about people who got vaccinated before they invented this shot? What it's come down to is as long as it's within a year maybe six months you can get the Prevnar 20 as long as you don't get 2 of the Prevnar 20s.   :17

DeJaco says these vaccines are covered by Medicare and side effects should be minimal. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.