BACKGROUND The burden of influenza is increasingly recognised in Africa. The WHO recommends introducing influenza vaccination to high-risk groups: pregnant women, children <5 years, and the elderly. The Gambia currently has no influenza vaccination policy, but the NASIMMUNE study, a clinical trial of intranasal live attenuated influenza vaccines (LAIV) in young children provided an opportunity ...

The live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) is preferentially recommended for use in most children yet remains unsafe for the groups most at risk. Here we have improved the safety of a mouse-adapted live attenuated influenza vaccine containing the same attenuating amino acid mutations as in human LAIV by adding an additional mutation at PB1 residue 319. This results in a vaccine with a 20-fold...

The United Kingdom is introducing a universal annual influenza vaccination programme for children. Live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) effectiveness (VE) against laboratory-confirmed influenza hospitalisation in 2 to 6 year-olds in England was measured in 2015/16 using the screening method. VE adjusted for age, geography and month was 54.5% (95% confidence interval (CI): 31.5% to 68.4%) fo...

Annual influenza vaccination is recommended for all persons aged ≥6 months. Two vaccine types are approved in the United States, injectable inactivated influenza vaccine (IIV) and live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV), which is administered intranasally. Influenza vaccine typicaly becomes widely available beginning in late summer or early fall. IIV has a standard expiration date of June 30 f...

The test-negative design (TND) is an efficient form of case-control study commonly applied to influenza vaccine effectiveness (VE) estimation. TND validity is predicated on the core assumption that the intervention (vaccine) has no effect on other non-targeted aetiologies resulting in similar illness/disease. Here we verify this core assumption and compare efficacy estimates derived by the TND ...

BACKGROUND Influenza is an uncontrolled epidemic disease that is vaccine preventable. New recommendations for universal immunization present a challenge to the implementation of vaccine delivery. This field trial examines the effectiveness of school-based clinics for vaccine delivery before an epidemic caused by 3 new influenza virus variants not contained in the vaccine. METHODS Live attenua...

Objective(s): Vaccination is one of the most effective means to protect humans and animals against brucellosis. Live attenuated Brucella vaccines are considered effective in animals but they may be potentially infectious to humans, so it is vital to improve the immunoprotective effects and safety of vaccines against Brucella. This study was designed to evaluate the immunogenicity of DNA vaccine...

Despite intense efforts there is no safe and efficacious vaccine against visceral leishmaniasis, which is fatal and endemic in many tropical countries. A major shortcoming in the vaccine development against blood-borne parasitic agents such as Leishmania is the inadequate predictive power of the early immune responses mounted in the host against the experimental vaccines. Often immune correlate...

Fifty-seven human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected (CDC class A1-2) and 54 non-HIV-infected adults, not prescreened for influenza susceptibility, were randomized to receive trivalent live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) or placebo intranasally. LAIV was safe and well tolerated with no serious adverse events attributable to vaccine. Reactogenicity rates were similar in LAIV and placebo ...

BACKGROUND Seasonal influenza is a major cause of mortality worldwide. Routine immunization of children has the potential to reduce this mortality through both direct and indirect protection, but has not been adopted by any low- or middle-income countries. We developed a framework to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of influenza vaccination policies in developing countries and used it to conside...