Vaccine
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Attitudes of general practitioners (GPs) towards A/H1N1 pandemic vaccination are unknown. We conducted a cross-sectional survey with computer-assisted telephone interviewing in the French Regional Panel of General Practices from June 16 to September 22, 2009. Of 1434 respondents representative of GPs in four French regions, 885 (61.7%) were willing to accept A/H1N1 pandemic vaccination for themselves. ⋯ Willingness to accept pandemic vaccination was also significantly associated with being on call for emergencies; positive attitudes towards other protective measures against A/H1N1 influenza virus in the practice; and a higher readiness to provide additional consultations in response to the pandemic. In conclusion, GPs showed a high acceptability of A/H1N1 pandemic vaccination. GPs' involvement in the mass vaccination campaign, which has been neglected by French public health authorities, may have increased uptake rates in the general public.
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Decisions on how to mitigate an evolving pandemic are technically challenging. We present a real-time assessment of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of alternative influenza A/H1N1v vaccination strategies. A transmission dynamic model was fitted to the estimated number of cases in real-time, and used to generate plausible autumn scenarios under different vaccination options. ⋯ The United Kingdom was the first country to have a major epidemic in Europe. In countries where the epidemic is not so far advanced vaccination of children may be cost-effective. Similar, detailed, real-time modelling and economic studies could help to clarify the situation.
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To evaluate the effectiveness of influenza vacation, we conducted analyses at both individual level and health region level. The association between influenza vaccination and hospital admission was examined among 128,677 subjects 12+ years of age who participated in a national survey in 2005. ⋯ Health regions with higher proportions of influenza vaccination had significantly lower proportions of hospitalization. A 10% increase in influenza vaccination less than 1 year ago was associated with a reduction of 11% in the risk of hospitalization over a 12-month time period at the health region level.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Immunogenicity and safety in adults of one dose of influenza A H1N1v 2009 vaccine formulated with and without AS03A-adjuvant: preliminary report of an observer-blind, randomised trial.
Governments and public health officials are preparing vaccination campaigns against the 2009 influenza A H1N1v pandemic strain. We evaluated two inactivated split-virion A/California/7/2009 H1N1v pandemic vaccines formulated with/without AS03(A), an oil-in-water emulsion adjuvant system containing tocopherol. This ongoing observer-blind study randomised 130 healthy adults aged 18-60 years to receive either AS03(A)-adjuvanted H1N1 vaccine containing 5.25 microg haemagglutinin (HA) (N=64) or non-adjuvanted H1N1 vaccine containing 21 microg HA (N=66) on Days 0 and 21. ⋯ Solicited injection site and general symptoms were reported more frequently for AS03(A)-adjuvanted vaccine but these were transient and mainly mild to moderate in intensity. Based on accepted immunological surrogates, these preliminary data suggest that one dose of either AS03(A)-adjuvanted H1N1v vaccine at a reduced HA dose or non-adjuvanted H1N1v vaccine at a fourfold higher dose is sufficient to immunise healthy adults. The strong immune response is consistent with prevalent immunological priming but as this and the ability to mount immune response after vaccination may be modulated by age, further investigations in children and in the elderly as well as on the persistence of the immune response are warranted.