Healthcare workers told to get vaccinated against influenza 

April 2008

A panel of experts at a briefing organised by the Influenza Specialist Group, have warned that influenza vaccination rates among Australian healthcare professionals is "unacceptably low" putting them at an increased risk of developing the disease, with potentially serious implications for themselves and patients in their care.

"Despite the fact that influenza kills more than 2,500 Australians annually, the people who care for the wellbeing of our community are often the least protected during the influenza season, with 50-80 per cent of healthcare professionals not getting vaccinated regularly" said Professor Robert Booy, Director of Research at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) at The Children's Hospital, Westmead. Ideally, uptake rates should be closer to 75 per cent, he said.

Content Updated (Monday, 19 May 2008)

April 2008

The cross-ministerial panel tasked by the Japanese Government with creating a new emergency anti influenza proposal plan, has released details of additional measures to prevent a new influenza virus from entering Japan.

Measures to prevent the virus from entering the country include prohibiting its citizens who have developed symptoms of a new type of influenza during an outbreak in other countries from returning to Japan and refusing to issue visas to foreigners of countries where such an outbreak occurs. The final details of the anti influenza plan is schduled to be announced in July this year.

Content Updated (Monday, 19 May 2008)

April 2008  

Scientists found the most common type of influenza virus strain, A (H3N2), are seeded by viruses that originate in East and Southeast Asia and migrate around the world. This new discovery may help to further improve influenza vaccines and make the evolution of the virus more predictable.

Scientists at the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with scientists from the World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Influenza Surveillance Network, found that each year since 2002 influenza A (H3N2) viruses have migrated out of what the authors call the "East and Southeast Asian ciculation network" (which includes tropical, subtropical, and temperate countries) and spread throughout the world. Their findings are reported in the April edition of Science.  

Content Updated (Monday, 19 May 2008)

 

for children in Australia

 

March 2008

 

The results of a Western Australian influenza vaccination trial involving children aged up to five years will be reviewed at the end of the 2008 influenza season and presented to federal authorities for consideration.

 

Dr Paul Van Buynder from the WA Health Department says the national influenza and vaccination advisory body will also review the broader U.S. recommendation for vaccination children ( in the U.S., all children from 6 months to 5 years are vaccinated and new recommendations have been made to vaccinate children up to 18 years) and assess whether a similar plan should be implemented in Australia.

 

"We do know that children are very importnat transmitters of infection and part of the reason that the U.S. has decided to do this is to try and protect other age groups and people with chrinic illnesses in the community by decreasing overall transmission," Dr Van Buynder said.

 

Content updated (Thursday 20, March)

4 March, 2008

Roche and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)  have added new labels to their prescription antiviral medications, oseltamivir (marketed in Australia as Tamiflu) and zanamivir( marketed in Australia as Relenza), which now contain a warning about cases of delirium and unusual behaviour in some patients. The revised contain more descriptive information about neuropsychiatric events related to influenza in general; however, the labels also highlight that no contribution by oseltamivir and zanamivir to these events has been established.

The changes come in the wake of reports of adverse effects, mostly seen in Japan, and Roche and GSK note that the revisions labels reflect recommendations made in November 2007 by a U.S Food and Drug Administrator (FDA) advisory panel.

Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) said labels had been updated in line with U.S changes .However a TGA spokewoman confirmed no deaths and only one adverse reaction had been reported in Australia in the past two years.

A recent study in the USA found no increase in neuropsychiatric events in patients prescribed Oseltamivir (1).  

1. Blumentals WA, Song X.The saftey of oseltamivir in patients with influenza: analysis of healthcare claims data from six influenza seasons. MedGenMed 2007;9(4):23

Content Updated (Thursday, 20 March 2008)

For children up to 18 years

February 2008

All U.S children aged from 6 months up to 18 years should be immunised annually against influenza, a panel of federal vaccine advisers have recommended. The recommendation from the Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices would expand the current recommendationthat all children aged 6 months to 5 years be vaccinated. The new recommendations should go into effect as soon as possible, but no later than the 2009-2010 Northern Hemisphere influenza seasons.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_61632.html

Content Updated (Thursday, 20 March 2008)

For the coming Northern Hemisphere winter - Brisbane strains

are prominent but this isn't a bad reflection on the city!

February 2008 

At its vaccine formulation consultation last week (11-13 February 2008) the WHO recommended that vaccines for use in the 2008-9 influenza season (northern hemisphere winter) should contain the following:

• an A/Brisbane/59/2007 (H1N1)-like virus;
• an A/Brisbane/10/2007 (H3N2)-like virus;*
• a B/Florida/4/2006-like virus.**

* A/Brisbane/10/2007 is a current southern hemisphere vaccine virus.

** B/Florida/4/2006 and B/Brisbane/3/2007 (a B/Florida/4/2006-like virus) are current southern hemisphere vaccine viruses.

For further details see: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/influenza/recommendations2008_9north/en/index.html

Dr Anne Kelso, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne assures the ISG that the reason for prominence of viruses from Brisbane in the WHO recommendations is not because Brisbane is a hotbed of influenza but rather reflects the excellent participation by Brisbane-based colleagues in providing high quality clinical specimens for the Centre.  These samples allow isolation and growth of viruses under conditions that are acceptable for their further development as potential vaccine strains, an essential part of the regular vaccine updating process.

Content Updated ( Friday, 22 February 2008 ) 

increased rates of resistance found in Europe, US and Canada

February 2008 

One of three types of the seasonal influenza A virus currently circulating in the United States, Canada and parts of Europe has shown increased rates of resistance to the antiviral drug oseltamivir (marketed in Australia as Tamiflu). The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently assessing the extent and geographical spread of the oseltamivir-resistant viruses. However, to date, no changes have been made to the organisation's recommendation that oseltamivir be used to treat human cases of influenza and WHO has not changed any of its recommendations regarding H5N1 treatment and pandemic preparations. Neither Japan, where the drug is widely prescribed for seasonal influenza, nor Hong Kong has seen increased resistance to date.

Content Updated ( Friday, 22 February 2008 ) 

Study shows school-based influenza immunisations are cost effective

January 2008

School-based vaccination could be a cost-effective option for preventing influenza in school-age children and their families, according to a recent multi-state trial in the USA. The trial, which was conducted in the autumn of 2004, grouped 28 elementary schools from four states into 11 demographically similar clusters, each of which included one intervention school that offered the vaccine plus one school that served as a control. Phone surveys during the peak week of the influenza season revealed that 17% of households of students in the intervention schools reported a child with influenza like illness, compared with 26% of households in the control schools. In the same week, 8% of households in the intervention group reported an adult with influenza-like illnesses compared with 13% in control-group households. The researchers believe the results support that the school vaccination program’s effectiveness extends to the household, and second, that a high-efficiency immunization program that requires minimal time from parents provides economic benefit. For more information on the study, please go to: http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.27.2.w96

Content Updated ( Friday, 22 February 2008 )

Researchers at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City have revealed that some people are more likely to die from influenza than others. The Researchers looked at death certificates and family records going back 100 years and found that blood relatives of influenza victims were more likely to die than non relatives - even during different influenza outbreaks. Siblings were 74 percent more likely to die of influenza than unrelated people, and blood uncles and first cousins of influenza victims were 22 and 16 per cent more likely.

Content Updated ( Friday, 18 January 2008 )