Vaccines for Lung Health: Flu, COVID 19, RSV & Pneumonia Protection
Vaccines play an important role in protecting your lungs, especially if you have chronic conditions like asthma or COPD. Respiratory infections such as influenza, COVID‑19, pneumonia, and RSV can lead to serious complications and hospitalization—but the right immunizations can reduce your risk.
Key Takeaways
- Vaccines help prevent respiratory illnesses that can affect your lung health
- Adults 65+, individuals who smoke, and people with asthma or COPD are at higher risk
- Key vaccines include flu, COVID‑19, pneumococcal, RSV and DTaP or Tdap
- Staying up to date can reduce severe illness, complications and hospitalizations
Vaccines and Respiratory Illnesses
Most vaccine-preventable diseases are spread from person to person, which means that if one person in a community gets an infectious disease, they can spread it to others. The best way to help stop the spread of certain diseases is through vaccination. If enough people are vaccinated there are fewer chances for a vaccine-preventable disease to spread, keeping everyone healthier.
Infectious respiratory diseases such as influenza, COVID-19, and RSV spread from person to person. Learn how your body fights back against these pathogens and some of the common side effects that you may experience as your immune system attacks.
A vaccine works by imitating an infection. It causes your immune system to start producing the same antibodies you would make if you were exposed to the real disease. This helps your body learn to recognize and fight an invasion of that virus or bacteria. Your body gets to develop immunity or learn how to defend itself from that disease without having to get infected from it first.
There are several kinds of vaccines. All vaccines have an active ingredient called an antigen that helps our body produce antibodies. These antigens can be either:
- Weakened or killed bacteria or viruses
- A piece of their exterior surface or genetic material, or
- Bacterial toxin that has been treated so that it is now non-toxic
People with lung disease such as asthma or COPD may be at increased risk for serious illness from certain vaccine-preventable diseases.
Respiratory infections can cause:
- Existing chronic health conditions to worsen
- Asthma attacks or COPD exacerbations
- Long-term illness or lung damage
- Hospitalization
- Death
Vaccination reduces both the risk of infection and the severity of illness if you do get sick.
What Vaccines Protect Lung Health?
Several vaccines are specifically recommended to help prevent infections that affect the lungs:
Some infectious respiratory diseases do not yet have a vaccine, including:
Talk to your healthcare provider to see if you are up to date on your vaccinations. Infectious respiratory disease can be unpredictable. It’s always better to prevent serious illness rather than treat it after it occurs.
Who Should Get These Immunizations?
Vaccination recommendations differ by vaccine, age, and risk factors. You may be at higher risk for serious respiratory illness if you:
- Are an older adult. As people age, their immune systems can weaken, increasing the risk for complications from respiratory illnesses. Most deaths occur in people older than 65.
- Are a young child, especially a baby, as they have developing immune systems and smaller lungs and airways.
- Have a chronic lung disease such as COPD, asthma or bronchiectasis.
- Smoke or formerly smoked.
- Have a weakened immune system either due to a medical condition or a medication or treatment.
- Have heart disease, diabetes or chronic kidney disease.
- Are pregnant. During pregnancy there are changes in your immune system, heart and lungs that can increase the risk of severe illness.
These individuals should talk to their healthcare provider about staying up to date on recommended immunizations.
When Should You Get Vaccinated?
- Flu vaccine: Every year, ideally before flu season begins (early fall).
- COVID‑19 vaccine: Every year, as recommended.
- Pneumococcal vaccine: Timing varies by vaccine type, age, health history and risk factors.
- RSV immunization: Timing is dependent on immunization type, age, health status and risk factors.
- DTaP and Tdap: Children receive a 5-dose series of DTaP, adolescents receive a single dose of Tdap at 11 or 12 years old and adults receive one dose at age 19 or older
Timing matters—getting vaccinated before virus circulation peaks (particularly to protect against flu and COVID-19) offers the best protection. Pertussis and pneumococcal pneumonia are not respiratory viruses, and you can be vaccinated anytime. RSV vaccination is recommended year-round for older adults, but ideal timing is before virus circulation.
Are Vaccines Safe for People with Lung Disease?
Yes. Vaccines are safe for most people with lung conditions and are strongly recommended.
- Side effects are typically mild (soreness, fatigue, low-grade fever)
- Serious side effects are rare
- The benefits far outweigh the risks, especially for individuals at high-risk
Always consult your healthcare provider if you have specific concerns.
Frequently Asked Questions
Vaccine Basics
A History of Vaccines
Vaccines have a long and impressive history. Well before we understood how infections worked, in the late 1700s an English physician Edward Jenner learned that giving small amounts of infected material from smallpox victims to others provided them protection from the dreaded disease. It was from those learnings that he developed a smallpox vaccine saving countless lives and smallpox has now been eradicated worldwide. Since that first vaccine was developed in 1798, we have used that same principle to produce vaccines to almost eliminate many of the formerly deadly childhood infectious diseases from the U.S. In fact, the greatest vaccine success in the modern era has been the near worldwide elimination of polio.
But it’s not always that simple. Try as we might, we have not yet been able to develop successful vaccines to control other important worldwide infections, such as tuberculosis (TB), malaria and HIV. In addition, controlling influenza also remains a challenge requiring new vaccines each flu season.
How Vaccines Are Approved
Vaccine and new drug testing are overseen by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and are done in a similar way. Below is the typical process that FDA expects vaccine developers to follow to provide safety and effectiveness data of a vaccine.
Once vaccines are approved for use by the FDA, an advisory committee to the CDC made up of medical and public health experts called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP will review all of the data. They then make a recommendation to add a vaccine to the vaccine schedule or not. The CDC Director then decides whether to approve the recommendation.
When vaccines are approved by FDA, they continue to be monitored for safety by several monitoring systems. CDC and ACIP can update their recommendation at any time as they continue to monitor vaccine-related risks and side effects.
Learn more by searching for recent vaccine topics covered in our Each Breath blog.
Ingredients in Vaccines to Protect Against Infectious Respiratory Diseases
Ingredients in vaccines generally fall into five categories, all of which have a specific purpose:
Only necessary ingredients are added to vaccines used today. Vaccines go through extensive clinical trials and testing for safety before they are licensed. Once they become available, they are continuously monitored using several safety monitoring systems. For a complete list of vaccines, their ingredients and more information about each ingredient, please visit the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Vaccine Education Center.
Page last updated: June 15, 2026
