The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that only about 2 percent of adults last year got a shot that can protect them from painful bouts of shingles. The data was revealed at a press conference held by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID), which also called for increased use of vaccines in adults to reduce preventable illness and deaths associated with infectious diseases.

Apparently, only 2.1 percent of adults 18 to 64 years of age have been immunized against tetanus-diphtheria-whooping cough.

"Routine immunization of children in the United States has saved hundreds of thousands of lives and prevented millions of cases of disease, but vaccines are not just for children," said Anne Schuchat, MD, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

"These new data show there are not yet very many adults taking full advantage of the great advancements in prevention that have been made in the past few years."

The CDC surveyed 7,000 adults as part of its annual survey. Also, it noted very low levels of awareness, as most adults cannot name more than one or two diseases that they can get a vaccine to prevent.

"There are more than 1 million new cases of shingles in the United States every year; over half in people 60 and older," said Dr. Michael Oxman of the University of California, San Diego, and the San Diego Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The shingles shot costs around $150.

Also, only 69 percent of adults get an annual flu shot, just 66 percent have had a one-time pneumonia vaccine and, finally, just 44 percent had received a tetanus shot in the past 10 years. There are other collateral health hazards associated with low levels of vaccination in adults. One of these is the risk of transmitting disease to not-yet-vaccinated infants.

About 10 percent of young women aged 18 to 26 got at least one of the three recommended doses of the HPV vaccine, with the three-shot HPV vaccine cost amounting to about $300. There are more than 100 different types of HPV, and Merck's Gardasil, protects against four of the most prevalent high-risk types.