Innovative vaccine campaigns called for to better inform elderly

Experts underline improving seniors' immunization as society rapidly ages

With China's swelling elderly population, health experts have called for developing vaccines to tackle diseases primarily affecting seniors and devising innovative methods to expand vaccine acceptance among the age group.

Feng Zijian, former deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and vice-president of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association, said that as society rapidly ages and people born during the baby boom of the 1960s get older, China is and will be under great pressure to provide adequate social, medical and rehabilitation services for them.

"The growing elderly population will be confronted with greater risk of infections," he said during a conference held over the weekend. "We are in need of more vaccines to reduce infections during old age."