Overview of vaccination recommendations and coverage rates in the EU Member States for the 2013–14 and 2014–15 influenza seasons.

This report provides an update on seasonal influenza immunisation policies and vaccination coverage rates in EU/EEA Member States for the 2012–13 influenza season.

In Europe, routine rotavirus vaccination of infants at the national level has been introduced with one or two vaccine brands in Finland, Austria, Luxembourg and Belgium within well-baby clinics or administered by general practitioners and paediatricians. When introducing a new vaccine, it is crucial to conduct studies evaluating the vaccination’s impact and effectiveness in order to decide on recommendations for its future use.

This publication presents the core European protocol for a series of proposed influenza vaccine effectiveness studies. The protocol includes a proposed plan for pooled analysis and has recently been adapted to measure vaccine effectiveness for the pandemic vaccine in 2009-10. Together with its twin publication ‘Protocols for cohort database studies to measure influenza vaccine effectiveness in the EU and EEA Member States’, this publication covers all methodological issues in the design and implementation of vaccine effectiveness studies, both for seasonal and the new A(H1N1)v influenza.