Vaccine
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More than 65% of the global rotavirus deaths were estimated to occur in 11 countries in Asia and Africa, claiming 345,000 children less than 5 years of age in 2004. While efficacious rotavirus vaccines are at hand, inequity in health delivery system within and between these countries was found to be the major hurdle against achieving the goal of rotavirus vaccine. ⋯ Even if the coverage reached 80%, there would remain 96,841 children dying because of rotavirus diarrhea in these 11 countries. Studies are therefore encouraged to develop comprehensive strategies to resolve inequity in health delivery system enabling the increase in the immunization coverage.
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Influenza vaccination among health-care workers is poor, and the effectiveness of hospital vaccination programs remains unclear. Little is known about the effectiveness of intensive evidence-based vaccination programs in nursing staff. We determined whether the recommended vaccination rate could be achieved among paediatric nurses during an intensive promotional program for influenza vaccination. We also sought to identify the reasons for which nurses refuse the influenza vaccine and predictors of future vaccination intent. ⋯ Adequate coverage of nurses is achievable during an intensive voluntary immunisation program against influenza, using best-known practices. Perceived lack of personal benefit is a major deterrent, while program convenience and previous vaccination strongly predict future vaccine acceptance. Our findings support interventions that improve the convenience of hospital immunisation programs for influenza, particularly those that are aimed at nurses and that promote vaccine efficacy and benefits.
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Comparative Study
Cost-effectiveness of live attenuated influenza vaccine versus inactivated influenza vaccine among children aged 24-59 months in the United States.
The US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recently expanded the influenza vaccine recommendation to include children 24-59 months of age. In a large head-to-head randomized controlled trial, live attenuated influenza vaccine, trivalent (LAIV) demonstrated a 54% relative reduction in culture-confirmed influenza illness compared with trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (TIV) among children aged 24-59 months. ⋯ Due to its increased relative vaccine efficacy over TIV, LAIV reduced the burden of influenza and lowered both direct health care and societal costs among children 24-59 months of age.
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Reassortant technology was used to obtain three interspecific reassortant influenza viruses using three influenza viruses of A/Puerto Rico/8/34(H1N1), A/swine/Hebei/1/2005(H3N2) and A/chicken/Guangdong/126/2002(H9N2). The high-growth reassortant strains were H9/PR8, H3/H9N2 and H1/H9N2 that contained hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) genes from the inactivated parental viruses and the other 6 internal genes from the live parental viruses. The trivalent formalin-inactivated vaccine, containing H1, H3 and H9 subtype antigens from human, swine and avian influenza viruses respectively, was prepared using these reassortant viruses. ⋯ It protected 100% chickens from challenge of A/chicken/Guangdong/126/2002 virus and protected 100% mice against challenges with different combinations of the three infective parental viruses. These results indicated that the trivalent vaccine could offer multi-protection against multi-influenza viruses synchronously. This kind of multivalent inactivated reassortant influenza vaccine maybe enlightens the pandemic influenza preparedness as the emergency measure.