The European Food Standard Agency has recently published a call for proposals for a methodological framework for potentially pandemic influenza strains.
This large national cohort study followed-up pregnant women admitted to hospital and found to have laboratory-confirmed influenza A(H1N1) 2009 infection during the autumn-winter wave of the 2009 pandemic. The main objective was determining any adverse pregnancy outcomes attributable to the infection.
Due to an association that was observed in the United States between a swine-flu based human influenza vaccine developed in 1976 and the disease acute polyneuropathy Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) (1,2), GBS was one of the adverse events that was monitored in Europe and North America (3) following the 2009 influenza pandemic vaccination campaigns.
ECDC has previously summarised information concerning the appearance of narcolepsy following the use of a specific pandemic vaccine (Pandemrix®) in children and adolescents in three European Countries.
The objective of WHO’s Global Influenza Vaccine Action Plan (which began in 2006) is to increase the use and supply of influenza vaccines on a routine basis.
In recent years a controversial topic has been whether or not antivirals, specifically the neuraminidase inhibitors, oseltamivir and zanamivir, reduce the likelihood of severe complications of seasonal or pandemic influenza if given soon after infection with influenza viruses.
The authors of this study from 12 European Union member states used statistical modelling and a novel European approach for combining data to explore the potential causes that might explain difference in transmission dynamics observed during the early stages of the 2009 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic.
On 9 June, ECDC will be hosting a technical side-event to the United Nations High-Level Meeting on AIDS 2011. The event will highlight how countries and regions with differing epidemiology could improve their responses to HIV/AIDS.