Expert review of vaccines
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Expert review of vaccines · Oct 2020
ReviewCOVID-19 in health-care workers: lessons from SARS and MERS epidemics and perspectives for chemoprophylaxis and vaccines.
Introduction: The world is now facing the COVID-19 pandemic. Experience with SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, and early reports about SARS-CoV-2 infection suggest that health-care settings and health-care workers (HCWs) are vulnerable in the context of the emergence of a new coronavirus. Areas covered: To highlight the need for prophylactic strategies particularly for HCWs, we identified SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks in health-care settings and the incidence of infections in HCWs by a search on MEDLINE and MEDxRIV (for SARS-Cov-2). ⋯ Some preventive strategies were evaluated in previous emerging coronavirus epidemics, particularly in MERS-CoV. For COVID-19 prevention, different chemoprophylaxis with drug repositioning and new agents are under evaluation, and different vaccine candidates entered clinical development, with clinical trials. HCWs are a crucial target population for pre-exposure and post-exposure prophylaxis.
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Expert review of vaccines · Oct 2020
ReviewPotential effects of vaccinations on the prevention of COVID-19: rationale, clinical evidence, risks, and public health considerations.
Introduction Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), has quickly spread around the world. Areas covered This review will discuss the available immunologic and clinical evidence to support the benefit of the influenza, pneumococcal, and tuberculosis vaccines in the context of COVID-19 as well as to provide an overview on the COVID-19-specific vaccines that are in the development pipeline. In addition, implications for vaccination strategies from a public health perspective will be discussed. ⋯ These vaccines may have either direct effect on COVID-19 via different types of immune responses or indirect effects by reducing the burden of viral and bacterial respiratory diseases on individual patients and national healthcare system and by facilitating differential diagnoses with other viral/bacterial respiratory disease. On the other hand, a large number of candidate vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 are currently in the pipeline and undergoing phase I, II, and III clinical studies. As SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are expected to be marketed through accelerated regulatory pathways, vaccinovigilance as well as planning of a successful vaccination campaign will play a major role in protecting public health.
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Expert review of vaccines · Oct 2020
How involvement of community pharmacies improves accessibility to and awareness about flu vaccination? - An example from Estonia.
In Estonia, seasonal influenza vaccination coverage is poor, being in recent years the lowest in the older age groups. In 2018 the flu vaccination was first provided at community pharmacies in Estonia. The aims of this study were to evaluate the experience of flu vaccination at community pharmacies by pharmacy customers and to learn about the perception of community pharmacists regarding the immunization service. ⋯ Vaccination service at community pharmacy has a great potential to expand flu immunization coverage in Estonia. Despite on pharmacy professionals are not allowed to provide vaccination service at the moment, their contribution to increase public awareness about flu vaccination is significant.