On 3 October 2011 European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and representatives of the European Vaccine Manufacturers met at ECDC in Stockholm for a regular scheduled meeting about the use of vaccines for prevention of seasonal and pandemic influenza. ECDC Director Marc Sprenger opened the meeting and ECDC influenza experts held different presentations, such as burden of influenza disease in the EU, risk groups for severe influenza disease, personal protective measures, pandemic influenza preparedness, seasonal influenza vaccines, communication.
The Declarations of Interest for ECDC Influenza Staff and the ECDC Director are available here under ECDC Transparency.
Two official evaluations have been made by the national Ministry of Health of Spain of their country’s response to the 2009 influenza pandemic. The reviews focused on two particular topics - Surveillance and Vaccines and Antivirals.
The ERS Annual Congress brings together the world's respiratory experts and professionals to meet, exchange views and share knowledge covering all aspects of respiratory medicine, novelties and most recent data presentations.
A multinational European team has reported the isolation of a human monoclonal antibody that can seemingly bind to and neutralize representative of all the known sub-types classes of influenza A haemagglutinins (HAs). This is the first such report of such an antibody.
EMA recommends restricting use in persons under 20 years of age Pandemrix to be used only in the absence of seasonal trivalent influenza vaccines, following link to very rare cases of narcolepsy in young people. Overall benefit-risk remains positive.
On 21 July 2011 the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) issued its opinion on the review of Pandemrix® and reports on narcolepsy. The CHMP recommended that in persons under 20 years of age Pandemrix® may only be used if the recommended seasonal trivalent influenza vaccine is not available and if immunisation against H1N1 is still needed (e.g. in persons at risk of the complications of infection).
The European Food Standard Agency has recently published a call for proposals for a methodological framework for potentially pandemic influenza strains.
Due to an association that was observed in the United States between a swine-flu based human influenza vaccine developed in 1976 and the disease acute polyneuropathy Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) (1,2), GBS was one of the adverse events that was monitored in Europe and North America (3) following the 2009 influenza pandemic vaccination campaigns.
ECDC has previously summarised information concerning the appearance of narcolepsy following the use of a specific pandemic vaccine (Pandemrix®) in children and adolescents in three European Countries.