1,722,570 research outputs found
Assessing vaccines and vaccination programmes in the field
No full textBackground: The impact of universal vaccination programmes in terms of reduction of disease burden is notquestioned very much in the scientific community. Nevertheless assessing safety and efficacy of vaccinationproducts in the field is an essential part of the success of any vaccination programme. In addition to that,there are several aspects of vaccination programmes that have to be evaluated and carefully assessed in orderto improve the overall quality of vaccination programmes.Methods: Several different epidemiological methods have been developed during the last decades for thesepurposes. A critical review of innovative epidemiological methods used for assessing vaccines in the field wasundertaken.Results: Availability of innovative methods and progress made in the field of health informatics allow easyevaluation of large volumes of information.Conclusions: In addition to scientific and technical support, political commitment is required in order toincrease the amount of resources available for public health professionals. International organisations canplay an important role at the EU level
Is there room for improving case management for contacts of meningococcal disease in the EU?
No full text
Wild and vaccine-derived poliovirus circulation, and implications for polio eradication
No full textPolio cases due to wild virus are reported by only three countries in the world. Poliovirus type 2 has been globally eradicated and the last detection of poliovirus type 3 dates to November 2012. Poliovirus type 1 remains the only circulating wild strain; between January and September 2016 it caused 26 cases (nine in Afghanistan, 14 in Pakistan, three in Nigeria). The use of oral polio vaccine (OPV) has been the key to success in the eradication effort. However, paradoxically, moving towards global polio eradication, the burden caused by vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPVs) becomes increasingly important. In this paper circulation of both wild virus and VDPVs is reviewed and implications for the polio eradication endgame are discussed. Between April and May 2016 OPV2 cessation has been implemented globally, in a coordinated switch from trivalent OPV to bivalent OPV. In order to decrease the risk for cVDPV2 re-emergence inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) has been introduced in the routine vaccine schedule of all countries. The likelihood of re-emergence of cVDPVs should markedly decrease with time after OPV cessation, but silent circulation of polioviruses cannot be ruled out even a long time after cessation. For this reason, immunity levels against polioviruses should be kept as high as possible in the population by the use of IPV, and both clinical and environmental surveillance should be maintained at a high level
European decision-maker perspective with regard to influenza prevention policies
No full textInfluenza is a public health priority in Europe. The impact of influenza pandemics on public health is very high, but seasonal influenza also constitutes an important burden in terms of hospitalisation and excess deaths. Influenza vaccination is a fundamental pillar of disease prevention. In the absence of a clear decision-making process for vaccination policies, EU institutions have, in recent years, fostered collaboration among Member States. Such collaboration was closer during the 2009 pandemic, which constituted a clear cross-border threat to EU citizens' health. The EU institutions have been supporting national vaccination programmes by providing evidence of the effectiveness and safety of influenza vaccination. Decision 1082/2013 was a major step toward EU collaboration, in that it highlighted the role of pandemic vaccination in the field of preparedness and emergency response, in which concerted action is clearly valuable
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
- …
