A multinational European team has reported the isolation of a human monoclonal antibody that can seemingly bind to and neutralize representative of all the known sub-types classes of influenza A haemagglutinins (HAs). This is the first such report of such an antibody.
EMA recommends restricting use in persons under 20 years of age Pandemrix to be used only in the absence of seasonal trivalent influenza vaccines, following link to very rare cases of narcolepsy in young people. Overall benefit-risk remains positive.
On 21 July 2011 the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) issued its opinion on the review of Pandemrix® and reports on narcolepsy. The CHMP recommended that in persons under 20 years of age Pandemrix® may only be used if the recommended seasonal trivalent influenza vaccine is not available and if immunisation against H1N1 is still needed (e.g. in persons at risk of the complications of infection).
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.
The authors present an appraisal of the pneumococcal epidemiological situation in 11 Central European countries. Data are based on study findings presented at the 12th Central European Vaccine Advisory Group (CEVAG) meeting, held on 21–22 May 2010 in Sofia, Bulgaria, and a literature review of the PubMed database.
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.