Even as an appreciable proportion of COPD exacerbations can still be prevented by increasing the influenza vaccine coverage, a recent study comparing the effectiveness of vaccination in the current and previous seasons has highlighted the urgent necessity of more effective vaccines for patients with COPD. According to a group of researchers from Navarra Institute for Health Research (IdiSNA), Spain, just 13.7 percent of the influenza cases in patients with COPD could be prevented by extending the influenza vaccine coverage. The study, published in Nature, observed that on an average over five influenza seasons, the effect of current-season influenza vaccination was moderate to prevent confirmed influenza among patients with COPD, with no concluding difference in the effect between outpatient and inpatient cases.