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.

The European Food Standard Agency has recently published a call for proposals for a methodological framework for potentially pandemic influenza strains.

Two official evaluations have been made by the national Ministry of Health of Spain of their country’s response to the 2009 influenza pandemic. The reviews focused on two particular topics - Surveillance and Vaccines and Antivirals.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently recommended using the same three flu strains in next year's Southern Hemisphere (SH) vaccine as are in the current Northern Hemisphere vaccine and were used last year in southern hemisphere countries.

It is accompanied by an editorial comment from Maria Zambon of the UK Health Protection Agency add link pleaseThis comprehensive study published by an international group attempts to estimate the global incidence of lower respiratory infections and premature deaths associated with influenza in children younger than 5 years.

This evaluated patients admitted to hospital with laboratory-confirmed or clinically diagnosed influenza A H1N1pdm09 virus infection.