Health workers must do more to prevent and treat infections in older people as current methods are haphazard, chief medical officer says England said.
In his annual report for 2025, prof. Chris Whitty said that preventing and treating infections has led to an “extraordinary increase in life expectancy over the past 150 years.”
But he stressed there is not enough research on infections in older people, a growing segment of society.
“While we are very systematic about reducing incidence and preventing infections in children and young people, it often occurs much more frequently in older people,” he said at a press briefing.
Figures for England for 2023 show that the vast majority of deaths from infectious diseases occurred in older people, and in this group the majority of cases were caused by respiratory infections or Covid.
Dr Thomas Waite, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, advocated raising the age at which older people eligible for Covid boosterand Whitty said the current priority is to encourage older people to get other shots, including the new one. jab vs RSV.
Whitty said the problem of infections among older adults isn't just about hospitalizations and severe illness. “Even fairly obvious mild illnesses like cellulitis can lead to very serious quality-of-life problems for older people,” he said, noting that such infections can leave people stuck in their homes and unable to socialize.
Additionally, he said, older adults may face an increased risk of stroke after bacterial or viral infections, while some evidence suggests infections may also increase the risk of heart attack or other heart problems.
Infections can also lead to delirium, and there is a link between severe infections and dementia – although Whitty noted that it was not yet clear whether this was causative or whether the infections accelerated the onset of the disease.
Whitty said hand washing, preparing food thoroughly, getting vaccinated and encouraging people who have recently been infected to stay away until they have recovered are among the actions people can take to protect themselves from infections.
He said that while it was important to maintain “firm control” over antibiotic prescribing to help tackle the threat of antimicrobial resistance, there should be a lower threshold for prescribing such drugs in older people as the risks of infection progressing to sepsis are much higher.
UCL's Professor Arne Akbar, chair of the British Society of Immunology Network on Aging, said preventing and better treating infections in older age has huge potential to enable people to enjoy a better quality of life for longer and reduce the burden on health and social care systems.
“We welcome the Surgeon General's report's focus on infections in older adults and hope it will catalyze a renewed focus on research into how we can prevent disease and improve infection outcomes in this age group,” he said.
The report doesn't just focus on older people. Among other things, it warns that the potential to achieve near-eradication of cervical cancer could be jeopardized if HPV vaccination rates are not maintained.
The report also highlights falling vaccination coverage among pregnant women and falling routine vaccination coverage among children, with the latter particularly noticeable in London and poorer areas.
“Some people who are keen to spread misinformation like to give the impression that the UK is becoming a vaccine-sceptic country. This is absolutely not the case,” Whitty said, adding that the decline in childhood vaccination rates had a lot to do with the practicalities of getting a vaccine.
The report also notes an increase in imported infections such as malaria over the past decade, which Whitty said underlines the importance of maintaining UK expertise in such areas. And he looks to the future, noting that situations like pandemics are “entirely predictable,” even if their timing is unfavorable.
“We need to maintain our ability to prevent and respond to infections between events, rather than wringing our hands and wishing we could do it when they happen,” Whitty wrote.
