A pair of linked papers from Finland concerning the above topic, one epidemiological and the second combining both clinical and epidemiological were published on March 28th in the open access journal, PLoS One.(1,2).
This study found a marked reduction in vaccine serotype carriage after PCV7 implementation. The overall pneumococcal, H. influenzae and S. aureus carriage decreased slightly, but not significantly.
This study, strong of an almost complete follow-up of all children born in Denmark from 2003 to 2008, provides evidence that the DTaP-IPV-HiB vaccine is not associated to an overall increased risk of febrile seizures and epilepsy.
To mark World Tuberculosis Day on 24 March 2012, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the WHO Regional Office for Europe publish their joint report, Tuberculosis surveillance and monitoring in Europe 2012.
In this study, the authors have combined a household method and a school study design to assess VE against mumps as well as VE against mumps infectiousness by comparing secondary attack rates in households of vaccinated and unvaccinated cases.
One of the most important functions and outputs of the laboratory aspect of the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS) coordinated by WHO are biannual influenza vaccine strain selection meetings that take place each year around February and September. These scientific meetings make recommendations on the antigens to go into the influenza vaccines for the northern hemisphere (February meeting) and southern hemisphere seasons (September meeting).