News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Predicting that 44% of this year's supply of influenza vaccine won't be available until November and December, federal health officials are recommending that vaccine doses available in October be reserved for healthcare workers and people who have an increased risk of influenza complications.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) says influenza vaccination may yield an extra benefit this year: limiting the number of false alarms for SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).

(CIDRAP News) – Signs of a shortage of influenza vaccine increased over the weekend with the announcement that the two leading manufacturers had shipped all the doses they had made.

(CIDRAP News) – The federal government is considering buying influenza vaccine from a British company in an effort to remedy a possible shortage in the United States, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – A retrospective study indicates that this year's injected influenza vaccine did little to prevent influenza-like illnesses (ILIs) among workers at a Denver hospital, but the study had many limitations and the vaccine is still recommended, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) said today it is launching an effort to quickly develop a vaccine against influenza A(H5N1), the avian flu virus that has caused at least five human deaths in Vietnam.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has completed its recommendations for next season's influenza vaccine, calling for inclusion of the A Fujian viral strain that caused most flu cases in the United States this winter.

(CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) plans to buy 4 million doses of influenza vaccine this year in an unprecedented step to prevent the kinds of shortages that occurred last season.

"This is a contingency in the event of a run on the vaccine like we had last year," said Curtis Allen, a spokesman for the CDC's National Immunization Program (NIP). He said the CDC has never stockpiled flu vaccine before.

(CIDRAP News) – It's official: federal health authorities say that from now on, all children between the ages of 6 months and 23 months should receive an annual influenza shot.

(CIDRAP News) – Almost 5 years ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the US Public Health Service joined in calling for removal of the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal from vaccines. By 2001, all the vaccines recommended for children under age 7 were available without thimerosal or with only trace amounts.