Effects of ageing on infectious disease

• Expectations are that 25% of the Dutch population will be aged 65 years or older in 2050 whilst in 2008 this proportion was only 15%. As a consequence the annual absolute number of new cases of specific infectious diseases will increase.

• Elderly people often have less clear symptoms of infection, making it harder for clinicians to recognize the disease.

• Morbidity and mortality caused by infections increase with age.

• Ageing will possibly cause an increase in levels of antibiotic resistance. There will be more elderly people in hospitals and nursing homes, where more antibiotics are used. This development will come in addition to other developments in the field of antibiotic resistance.

• There will be more elderly people with chronic HIV and viral hepatitis B and C infection and their complications because patients who are presently infected with those pathogens are ageing.

• Policy makers should more often consider introducing vaccination of older age groups against certain infectious diseases.

Conflict of interest and financial support: the report ‘Staat van Infectieziekten in Nederland in 2008’ (http://www.rivm.nl/bibliotheek/rapporten/210211005.html) was written by the Centre for Infectious Disease Control of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) by commission of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS).