Abstract
The United Kingdom is introducing a universal annual influenza vaccination programme for children. Live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) effectiveness (VE) against laboratory-confirmed influenza hospitalisation in 2 to 6 year-olds in England was measured in 2015/16 using the screening method. VE adjusted for age, geography and month was 54.5% (95% confidence interval (CI): 31.5% to 68.4%) for all influenza types combined; 48.3% (95% CI: 16.9% to 67.8%) for A(H1N1)pdm09 and 70.6% (95% CI: 33.2% to 87.1%) for B. The findings support on-going programme roll-out.
Highlights
The United Kingdom (UK) started the phased introduction of a universal paediatric influenza vaccination programme in 2013/14, following recommendations from the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) [1]
The UK has published evidence that live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) provided significant protection against influenza for children consulting in primary care in 2015/16 [4], to date no data have been published on the potential effectiveness of this vaccine against more severe disease
There were a total of 176 children 2 to 6 years of age on 1 September 2015 with laboratory-confirmed influenza infection reported to UK Severe Influenza Surveillance System (USISS), who were hospitalised between week 40 2015 and week 20 2016
Summary
The United Kingdom (UK) started the phased introduction of a universal paediatric influenza vaccination programme in 2013/14, following recommendations from the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) [1]. The UK has published a series of papers demonstrating that the programme has provided direct protection against influenza-confirmed infection in primary care over the first three seasons [3,4]. The UK Severe Influenza Surveillance System (USISS) was established after the 2009 influenza pandemic and collects information on laboratory-confirmed influenza hospitalisations through a sentinel network of acute hospital trusts in England [5]. This surveillance system provides an opportunity to measure whether the new paediatric influenza vaccination programme provides direct protection against more severe infection in children
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