The United States Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on vaccine issues, voted to approve a new recommendation on  February 24 to offer seasonal influenza vaccination to the whole population aged 6 months and older.

​An important conclusion from this process is that the current situation, with B viruses dominating (80%), is likely to continue through the season.

This initiative was taken following the indication of a potential association between the 2009 pandemic influenza A(H1N1) monvalent vaccine and the occurrence of narcolepsy following reports, especially in children from Finland and Sweden.

This recommendation for the Northern Hemisphere is the same as for the season 2010-2011 and for the Southern Hemisphere season.

In February 2011, ECDC published a report concerning a rise in narcolepsy in children and adolescents in some northern countries.

The journal Critical Care Medicine has recently published a supplement of open access articles on the experience in intensive care units during the 2009 pandemic of influenza.

Each year in February WHO convenes a meeting with advisers from the WHO Influenza Collaborating Centres and Essential Reference laboratories in order to achieve consensus and advise WHO on the optimal formulation of seasonal influenza vaccines for the next influenza season.

A four-fold increased incidence of narcolepsy in vaccinated children/adolescents compared to unvaccinated children was observed in this register-based cohort study.

This is timely comparison carried out at the end of the 2010 southern hemisphere winter.

In recent years there have been a series of arguments and findings suggesting that Statins (HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors) which used widely to lower cholesterol levels may also be important in reducing the risk associated with severe infective conditions.