Vaccine
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Accumulating evidence for the substantial burden of influenza in children has increased interest in the vaccination of young children against influenza. So far, however, few European countries have issued official recommendations to vaccinate healthy children, which is largely due to the popular belief that inactivated influenza vaccines are ineffective in young children. ⋯ The live attenuated influenza vaccine provides even greater effectiveness in children, but the overall potential of this vaccine is limited by its licensure for only children older than 2 years of age. The safety record of seasonal inactivated influenza vaccines is excellent even in the youngest children.
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During the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic several pandemic H1N1 vaccines were licensed using fast track procedures, with relatively limited data on the safety in children and adolescents. Different extensive safety monitoring efforts were put in place to ensure timely detection of adverse events following immunization. These combined efforts have generated large amounts of data on the safety of the different pandemic H1N1 vaccines, also in children and adolescents. ⋯ As a result, relatively little has been learned on the comparative safety of these pandemic H1N1 vaccines - particularly in children. It should be a collective effort to give added value to the enormous work going into the individual studies by adhering to available guidelines for the collection, analysis, and presentation of vaccine safety data in clinical studies and to guidance for the clinical investigation of medicinal products in the pediatric population. Importantly the pandemic has brought us the beginning of an infrastructure for collaborative vaccine safety studies in the EU, USA and globally.