A rapid communication published on April 12th 2012 describes the early results of the annual multicentre case-control study undertaken by the ECDC sponsored I-MOVE consortium whose work is coordinated by an Epiconcept team
Preliminary results of European vaccine effectiveness study show decreased protective effect of the seasonal influenza vaccine in 2011/2012 season. ECDC Director Marc Sprenger calls for action.
In the autumn of 2011 a United States Government body, the NSABB established under the National Institutes of Health considered two scientific papers describing experimental work manipulating avian influenza viruses.
ECDC and the European Respiratory Society (ERS) have developed 21 patient-centred standards that aim to guide clinicians and public health workers in their daily work to ensure optimal diagnosis, treatment and prevention of tuberculosis (TB) in Europe. Nearly 74 000 reported TB cases in the EU/EEA in 2010 clearly show that tuberculosis remains a public health challenge across the region.
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.
In a hearing at the European Parliament in Brussels, ECDC Director Marc Sprenger underlined the importance of sufficient resources at national level to diagnose and adequately treat tuberculosis.