Between September 2017 and February 2018, influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, A(H3N2) and B viruses (mainly B/Yamagata, not included in 2017/18 trivalent vaccines) co-circulated in Europe. Interim results from five European studies indicate that, in all age groups, 2017/18 influenza vaccine effectiveness was 25 to 52% against any influenza, 55 to 68% against influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, -42 to 7% against influenza A(H3N2) and 36 to 54% against influenza B. 2017/18 influenza vaccine should be promoted where influenza still circulates. ; Funding: The five studies have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 634446 to conduct the study in individuals aged 65 years or more. ECDC has contributed to fund some study sites of the EU-PC study under the Framework contract No ECDC/2014/026 for the individuals aged less than 65 years. All study teams are very grateful to all patients, general practitioners, paediatricians, hospital teams, laboratory teams, regional epidemiologists who have contributed to the studies. We acknowledge the authors, originating and submitting laboratories of the sequences from GISAID's EpiFlu Database used for this study. All submitters of data may be contacted directly via the GISAID website www.gisaid.org ; Sí
European IVE Group - Portuguese Team: Verónica Gomez, Irina Kislaya, Baltazar Nunes, Ana Paula Rodrigues Ausenda Machado (Departamento de Epidemiologia, Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge); Patrícia Conde, Inês Costa, Paula Cristóvão, Pedro Pechirra, Raquel Guiomar (Departamento de Doenças Infeciosas, Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge). ; Seasonal influenza vaccine is recommended in all European Union (EU) countries for older people and others at increased risk of severe influenza and its complications, including those with chronic diseases. In the United Kingdom (UK), incremental introduction of a universal childhood influenza vaccination programme began in 2013/14. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations for trivalent influenza vaccine strains for the 2018/19 northern hemisphere influenza season included an A/Michigan/45/2015 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus, an A/Singapore/INFIMH-16–0019/2016 (H3N2)-like virus and a B/Colorado/06/2017-like virus from the B/Victoria lineage. The early 2018/19 influenza season in Europe was characterised by both influenza A virus subtypes circulating widely. There was co-circulation in some countries, with others reporting dominance of either A(H1N1)pdm09 or A(H3N2) viruses. The season started late in most countries compared with previous seasons, with few influenza B viruses detected in the WHO European Region. Since the 2008/09 season, the UK, Denmark, Spain, and several other EU countries conducting multicentre studies, have participated in I-MOVE (Influenza – Monitoring Vaccine Effectiveness in Europe), a network measuring influenza vaccine effectiveness each season. Interim results from six established influenza VE studies across Europe for the 2018/19 season indicate that VE against laboratory-confirmed influenza A ranged between 32% and 43% among all ages in primary care and hospital settings and was 59% in the target groups for vaccination. ; ECDC ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Members of the I-MOVE+ working group - Portugal: B. Nunes, A. Machado, A.P. Rodrigues, V. Gómez, I. Kislaya, R. Guiomar, P. Pechirra, P. Cristóvão, I. Costa (National Health Institute Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Lisbon), A.Panarra, R. Côrte-Real (Centro Hospitalar de Lisboa Central, Lisbon), J. Poças, M.J. Peres (Centro Hospitalar de Setúbal, Setúbal). ; Between September 2017 and February 2018, influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, A(H3N2) and B viruses (mainly B/Yamagata, not included in 2017/18 trivalent vaccines) co-circulated in Europe. Interim results from five European studies indicate that, in all age groups, 2017/18 influenza vaccine effectiveness was 25 to 52% against any influenza, 55 to 68% against influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, -42 to 7% against influenza A(H3N2) and 36 to 54% against influenza B. 2017/18 influenza vaccine should be promoted where influenza still circulates. ; The five studies have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 634446 to conduct the study in individuals aged 65 years or more. ECDC has contributed to fund some study sites of the EU-PC study under the Framework contract No ECDC/2014/026 for the individuals aged less than 65 years. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Background: The Accelerated Development of VAccine beNefit-risk Collaboration in Europe (ADVANCE) is a public-private collaboration aiming to develop and test a system for rapid benefit-risk monitoring of vaccines using existing healthcare databases in Europe. We estimated vaccine coverage from electronic healthcare databases as part of a fit-for-purpose assessment for vaccine benefit-risk studies. Methods: A retrospective dynamic cohort study was conducted through a distributed network approach. Coverage with measles-vaccine for birth year 2006, human papillomavirus (HPV)-vaccine for birth years 1990-2000 and influenza-vaccine for birth years 1920-1950 was estimated using period-prevalence and inverse probability weighting methods. Seven databases from four countries participated: Italy (Pedianet, Val Padana), Spain (BIFAP, SIDIAP), UK (RCGP-RSC, THIN), Denmark (SSI/AUH). Database access providers extracted the data, transformed it into a common structure and ran an R-script locally. The created output tables were shared and pooled at a central server. Results: The total study population comprised 274,616 persons for measles-vaccine, 2,011,666 persons for HPV-vaccine and 14,904,033 persons for influenza-vaccine. Measles-vaccine coverage varied from 84.3% (Denmark) to 96.5% (Italy, Val Padana) for the first dose and from 82.8% (Italy, Val Padana) to 90.9% (UK) for the second dose at the age of 7 years. The HPV-vaccine coverage, aggregated over birth years 1997-2000, ranged from 60% (UK) to 88.3% (Denmark) at the age of 15 years. The influenza-vaccine coverage for the influenza seasons from 2009 to 2015 for persons aged 65 years and more was roughly stable around 43% in Denmark and around 68% in the UK while a decrease from 58 to 50% was observed in Catalonia (Spain). Conclusions: We obtained detailed, age-specific coverage estimates though a common procedure. We discussed between database comparability and comparability to published national estimates. ; The Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking funded this project under ADVANCE grant agreement no 115557, resources of which were composed of a financial contribution from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) and in kind contributions from EFPIA member companies. ; Braeye, T (reprint author), Sciensano, Rue Juliette Wytsman 14, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium. toon.braeye@sciensano.be
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a common cause of acute lower respiratory tract infections and hospitalisations among young children and is globally responsible for many deaths in young children, especially in infants aged <6 months. Furthermore, RSV is a common cause of severe respiratory disease and hospitalisation among older adults. The development of new candidate vaccines and monoclonal antibodies highlights the need for reliable surveillance of RSV. In the European Union (EU), no up-to-date general recommendations on RSV surveillance are currently available. Based on outcomes of a workshop with 29 European experts in the field of RSV virology, epidemiology and public health, we provide recommendations for developing a feasible and sustainable national surveillance strategy for RSV that will enable harmonisation and data comparison at the European level. We discuss three surveillance components: active sentinel community surveillance, active sentinel hospital surveillance and passive laboratory surveillance, using the EU acute respiratory infection and World Health Organization (WHO) extended severe acute respiratory infection case definitions. Furthermore, we recommend the use of quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR-based assays as the standard detection method for RSV and virus genetic characterisation, if possible, to monitor genetic evolution. These guidelines provide a basis for good quality, feasible and affordable surveillance of RSV. Harmonisation of surveillance standards at the European and global level will contribute to the wider availability of national level RSV surveillance data for regional and global analysis, and for estimation of RSV burden and the impact of future immunisation programmes.
In: Teirlinck , A C , Broberg , E K , Berg , A S , Campbell , H , Reeves , R M , Carnahan , A , Lina , B , Pakarna , G , Bøås , H , Nohynek , H , Emborg , H-D , Nair , H , Reiche , J , Oliva , J A , Gorman , J O , Paget , J , Szymanski , K , Danis , K , Socan , M , Gijon , M , Rapp , M , Havlíčková , M , Trebbien , R , Guiomar , R , Hirve , S S , Buda , S , van der Werf , S , Meijer , A & Fischer , T K 2021 , ' Recommendations for respiratory syncytial virus surveillance at the national level ' , European Respiratory Journal , vol. 58 , no. 3 . https://doi.org/10.1183/13993003.03766-2020
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a common cause of acute lower respiratory tract infections and hospitalisations among young children and is globally responsible for many deaths in young children, especially in infants aged <6 months. Furthermore, RSV is a common cause of severe respiratory disease and hospitalisation among older adults. The development of new candidate vaccines and monoclonal antibodies highlights the need for reliable surveillance of RSV. In the European Union (EU), no up-to-date general recommendations on RSV surveillance are currently available. Based on outcomes of a workshop with 29 European experts in the field of RSV virology, epidemiology and public health, we provide recommendations for developing a feasible and sustainable national surveillance strategy for RSV that will enable harmonisation and data comparison at the European level. We discuss three surveillance components: active sentinel community surveillance, active sentinel hospital surveillance and passive laboratory surveillance, using the EU acute respiratory infection and World Health Organization (WHO) extended severe acute respiratory infection case definitions. Furthermore, we recommend the use of quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR-based assays as the standard detection method for RSV and virus genetic characterisation, if possible, to monitor genetic evolution. These guidelines provide a basis for good quality, feasible and affordable surveillance of RSV. Harmonisation of surveillance standards at the European and global level will contribute to the wider availability of national level RSV surveillance data for regional and global analysis, and for estimation of RSV burden and the impact of future immunisation programmes.