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.
The first study, conducted in Europe during the 2009 pandemic addressed several objectives concerning the pathogenesis of the disease caused by the influenza A(H1N1) 2009 viruses.
While there have been some early descriptive reports of school outbreaks, for example a number published in Eurosurveillance from France and the UK this study is unusual in combining modelling, social network theory and ‘shoe-leather epidemiology’.
Objective of meeting: To build consensus on best practices for influenza seroprevalence studies that will optimize the timing, quality, comparability and combinability of data
Details of two innovative initiatives designed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to increase awareness of influenza and seasonal influenza were recently published on the CDC website.