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.
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.
In July–November 2009, 26 European Union Member States, Norway and Iceland, participated in a survey seeking information on national tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) vaccination recommendations.
In the context of an active nationwide surveillance network, this study describes pneumoccocal meningitis in children aged from 1 day to 15 years during a 8 year study period (2001-2008) in France. 951 pneumoccocal meningitis cases were reported among 3312 children with bacterial meningitis. T
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.
European and Asian viruses within the tick-borne encephalitis Flavivirus complex are known to show temporal, spatial and phylogenetic relationships that imply a clinal pattern of evolution.
This paper is a really nice analysis of results provided by a national tick surveillance program conducted from 2005 and 2009 in Great Britain by HPA. This study shows that useful information on tick distribution and ecology can be obtained from passive surveillance based on punctual records from public, veterinarians, clinicians, wildlife charities and academics from across Great Britain.