In 2012, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation recommended that the National Immunisation Programme for influenza be extended to include healthy children/adolescents aged 2-17 years. In the UK, extension of this new immunisation programme began in 2013-2014 and targeted children aged 2 years and 3 years in primary care. Several implementation pilots were undertaken in primary scho...

BACKGROUND Few observational studies have evaluated the relative effectiveness of live attenuated (LAIV) and inactivated (IIV) influenza vaccines against medically attended laboratory-confirmed influenza. METHODS We analyzed US Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness Network data from participants aged 2 to 17 years during 4 seasons (2010-2011 through 2013-2014) to compare relative effectiveness of L...

BACKGROUND Influenza poses a significant burden on healthcare systems and society, with under-recognition in the paediatric population. Existing vaccination policies (largely) target the elderly and other risk groups where complications may arise. OBJECTIVE The goal of this study was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of annual paediatric vaccination (in 2-17-year-olds) with live attenuated i...

BACKGROUND This systematic review and meta-analysis describes and consolidates findings from all studies that assessed the effectiveness of live-attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) against laboratory-confirmed influenza since the 2009 pandemic in children and young adults. METHODS A MEDLINE search was conducted for articles published from January 1, 2010 to November 30, 2016. All original pub...

BACKGROUND We evaluated a candidate A/Anhui/2013(H7N9) pandemic live attenuated influenza vaccine (pLAIV) in healthy adults, and assessed the ability of 1 or 2 doses to induce immune memory. METHODS Healthy subjects in 2 age groups (18-49 years and 50-70 years) with undetectable hemagglutination-inhibiting (HAI) antibody to H7N9 were enrolled. Younger subjects received either 1 or 2 intranasa...

BACKGROUND Routine annual influenza vaccination is primarily recommended for all persons aged 60 and above and for people with underlying chronic conditions in Germany. Other countries have already adopted additional childhood influenza immunisation programmes. The objective of this study is to determine the potential epidemiological impact of implementing paediatric influenza vaccination using...

Cold-adapted influenza strains A/Leningrad/134/17/57 (H2N2) and B/USSR/60/69, originally developed in Russia, have been reliable master donors of attenuation for preparing live attenuated influenza vaccines (LAIV). The classical strategy for generating LAIV reassortants is robust, but has some disadvantages. The generation of reassortants requires at least 3 passages under selective conditions ...

To the editor: We thank Fry et al. for their interest in our editorial, in which we sought to lay out the evolving evidence surrounding the effectiveness of live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) in preventing infections with influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 and the potential consequences of a perceived or true lack of effectiveness for childhood immunisation programmes and pandemic preparedness [1]. W...

BACKGROUND Live attenuated influenza vaccine viruses (LAIVs) can be generated by classical reassortment of gene segments between a cold adapted, temperature sensitive and attenuated Master Donor Virus (MDV) and a seasonal wild-type (wt) virus. The vaccine candidates contain hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) genes derived from the circulating wt viruses and the remaining six genes derive...

Background The H5N1 avian influenza was first recognized in humans in Hong Kong 20 years ago. Current enzootic spread of highly pathogenic H5N1 virus among wild and domestic poultry and a number of severe human respiratory diseases caused by this pathogen have stimulated necessity of development of potentially pandemic influenza vaccines. Discussion In the past few years, significant research...