(CIDRAP News) When Ontario started offering free seasonal influenza vaccines to anyone over 6 months of age in 2000, Canadian researchers seized on a unique opportunity to compare the universal approach with a more targeted vaccination strategy, and they found that the universal model decreased flu-related deaths and healthcare visits.
(CIDRAP News) The World Health Organization (WHO) has drafted a revised pandemic influenza preparedness plan that updates the definitions of pandemic phases and puts more emphasis on the social and economic effects of a global epidemic, among other changes.
(CIDRAP News) In the face of chronic low influenza vaccination rates among healthcare workers, the leading US society of infection control professionals says it's time to require medically eligible workers to either get the immunization or sign a form saying they understand the risks to patients if they skip it.
(CIDRAP News) – A flu vaccine manufacturer's decision not to build a US facility has highlighted the perpetual mismatch between flu-shot supply and demand—and the reality that the mismatch may undermine plans for pandemic flu vaccines.
(CIDRAP News) Surveys indicate that recommendations to immunize small children against influenza have been slow to catch on, while flu immunization for adults was somewhat slow to recover from a setback caused by a vaccine shortage 4 years ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
(CIDRAP News) Public health and medical leaders predicted today that this year's influenza vaccine will match up well with circulating flu virusesunlike last year's vaccineand that plenty of doses will be available.
Editor's note: The second paragraph of this story was revised on Sep 24 to correct an error. On the basis of information from ProMED-mail (published by the International Society for Infectious Diseases), the original version said it was unusual for the southern hemisphere vaccine composition to be the same as the preceding northern hemisphere vaccine. A later ProMED-mail posting made clear that this is not unusual.
(CIDRAP News) The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) suggests in a new report that an increased focus on the development of vaccine adjuvants could save the US government money while improving the nation's preparedness for an influenza pandemic.
(CIDRAP News) A study conducted in Bangladesh suggests that an influenza shot during pregnancy lowers the risk of influenza both for the woman and for the baby in the first 6 months of life.
(CIDRAP News) Some healthcare experts have wondered if large mortality reductions among older people who receive seasonal influenza immunizations are real or if the findings are biased by a "healthy-user" effect. But now a study that more rigorously controlled for confounders suggests that the benefits are overstated.
