Vaccination barriers and drivers in Romania: a focused ethnographic study.

Background: In 2016-18, a large measles outbreak occurred in Romania identified by pockets of sub-optimally vaccinated population groups in the country. The aim of the current study was to gain insight into barriers and drivers from the experience of measles vaccination from the perspectives of caregivers and their providers.

Methods: Data were collected by non-participant observation of vaccination consultations and individual interviews with health workers and caregivers in eight Romanian clinics with high or low measles vaccination uptake.

A Research and Development (R&D) roadmap for influenza vaccines: Looking toward the future.

Improved influenza vaccines are urgently needed to reduce the burden of seasonal influenza and to ensure a rapid and effective public-health response to future influenza pandemics. The Influenza Vaccines Research and Development (R&D) Roadmap (IVR) was created, through an extensive international stakeholder engagement process, to promote influenza vaccine R&D. The roadmap covers a 10-year timeframe and is organized into six sections: virology; immunology; vaccinology for seasonal influenza vaccines; vaccinology for universal influenza vaccines; animal and human influenza virus infection models; and policy, finance, and regulation.

Pregnant women & vaccines against emerging epidemic threats: Ethics guidance for preparedness, research, and response.

Zika virus, influenza, and Ebola have called attention to the ways in which infectious disease outbreaks can severely - and at times uniquely - affect the health interests of pregnant women and their offspring. These examples also highlight the critical need to proactively consider pregnant women and their offspring in vaccine research and response efforts to combat emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Historically, pregnant women and their offspring have been largely excluded from research agendas and investment strategies for vaccines against epidemic threats, which in turn can lead to exclusion from future vaccine campaigns amidst outbreaks.

The Coalition Against Typhoid: Mobilizing a Community for a Global Fight.

Typhoid became a low priority on the global public health agenda when it was largely eliminated from developed countries in the 1940s. However, communities in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa continue to bear the brunt of the disease burden. One strategy to increase attention and coordinate action is the creation of a coalition to act as a steward for typhoid.

Strengthening legal frameworks for vaccination: The experiences of Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova.

Background: Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, delivers life-saving vaccines to children in the world's poorest countries and encourages countries to assume increasing ownership of their immunization programs as their economies grow. Vaccination legislation may promote country ownership and immunization program sustainability. However, despite establishment of vaccination laws as an indicator of national commitment to immunization through the Global Vaccine Action Plan, little is known about the content of vaccination legislation in low- and middle-income countries and the processes by which countries strengthen their legal frameworks.

Typhoid conjugate vaccines: a new tool in the fight against antimicrobial resistance.

Typhoid fever is an acute systemic infectious disease responsible for an estimated 12-20 million illnesses and over 150 000 deaths annually. In March, 2018, a new recommendation was issued by WHO for the programmatic use of typhoid conjugate vaccines in endemic countries. Health economic analyses of typhoid vaccines have informed funding decisions and national policies regarding vaccine rollout.

The National Vaccine Advisory Committee at 30: Impact and opportunity.

Thirty years after passage of legislation that created the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) "to achieve optimal prevention of human infectious diseases through immunization and to achieve optimal prevention against adverse reactions to vaccines," this review reflects NVAC's role and impact on the U.S. vaccine and immunization enterprise as an external advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Beneficiary characteristics and vaccinations in the end-stage renal disease Medicare beneficiary population, an analysis of claims data 2006-2015.

Background: The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) routinely recommends three vaccines - influenza, hepatitis B, and pneumococcal vaccines - for End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) dialysis patients.

Methods: We sought to assess vaccination coverage among fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare beneficiaries with ESRD who received Part B dialysis services at any point from January 1, 2006 through December 31, 2015 (through June 30, 2016 for influenza). To assess influenza vaccination rates in a given influenza season, we restricted the population to beneficiaries who were continuously enrolled in Medicare Parts A and B throughout all twelve months of that season.

Planning and priority setting for vaccine development and immunization.

We review a sequence of strategic planning efforts over time in the United States, all involving processes to prioritize new vaccine candidates. The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has been involved in three priority setting processes, each using different metrics and methodologies: infant mortality equivalents (1985-1986), cost-effectiveness (2000), and more recently, the implementation of a software system based on a broader multi-criteria systems approach that can include either of the earlier metrics among other various considerations (2015). The systems approach offers users the flexibility to select, combine, rank, weigh and evaluate different attributes representing their perspectives, assumptions, and particular needs.

Informing vaccine decision-making: A strategic multi-attribute ranking tool for vaccines-SMART Vaccines 2.0.

SMART Vaccines 2.0 software is being developed to support decision-making among multiple stakeholders in the process of prioritizing investments to optimize the outcomes of vaccine development and deployment. Vaccines and associated vaccination programs are one of the most successful and effective public health interventions to prevent communicable diseases and vaccine researchers are continually working towards expanding targets for communicable and non-communicable diseases through preventive and therapeutic modes.

Childhood immunizations: First-time expectant mothers' knowledge, beliefs, intentions, and behaviors.

Introduction: This study focused on how first-time mothers decide or intend to decide with respect to the recommended childhood immunization schedule.

Methods: This was the baseline survey of a larger longitudinal survey. Data were collected between June and September 2014 from 200 first-time mothers in their second trimester of pregnancy to examine vaccine-related knowledge, perceptions, intentions, and information-seeking behavior.

Childhood Immunizations: First-Time Expectant Mothers' Knowledge, Beliefs, Intentions, and Behaviors.

Introduction: This study focused on how first-time mothers decide or intend to decide with respect to the recommended childhood immunization schedule.

Methods: This was the baseline survey of a larger longitudinal survey. Data were collected between June and September 2014 from 200 first-time mothers in their second trimester of pregnancy to examine vaccine-related knowledge, perceptions, intentions, and information-seeking behavior.

Communicating the role and value of vaccine adjuvants.

Despite the inclusion of adjuvants in many routinely used vaccines to improve the immune response, their presence and role are neither clear in product details such as the packaging or in the Summaries of Product Characteristics, nor understood by health professionals or the public. For many vaccines the adjuvant may simply be described as 'Adsorbed' without clarification that the adsorbing onto a material such as aluminium hydroxide adjuvants the antigens. As many future vaccines are likely to be adjuvanted, the presence of adjuvants, either those used in existing vaccines or novel formulations, may raise public and professional concerns unless communication materials are prepared in advance to allay anxieties such as those that have arisen over some present vaccine ingredients such as thiomersal.

Addressing vaccine hesitancy: The potential value of commercial and social marketing principles and practices.

Many countries and communities are dealing with groups and growing numbers of individuals who are delaying or refusing recommended vaccinations for themselves or their children. This has created a need for immunization programs to find approaches and strategies to address vaccine hesitancy. An important source of useful approaches and strategies is found in the frameworks, practices, and principles used by commercial and social marketers, many of which have been used by immunization programs.

Association between Guillain-Barré syndrome and influenza A (H1N1) 2009 monovalent inactivated vaccines in the USA: a meta-analysis.

Background: The influenza A (H1N1) 2009 monovalent vaccination programme was the largest mass vaccination initiative in recent US history. Commensurate with the size and scope of the vaccination programme, a project to monitor vaccine adverse events was undertaken, the most comprehensive safety surveillance agenda in the USA to date. The adverse event monitoring project identified an increased risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome after vaccination; however, some individual variability in results was noted.

Success of program linking data sources to monitor H1N1 vaccine safety points to potential for even broader safety surveillance.

In response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and subsequent vaccination program, the Department of Health and Human Services and collaborators developed the Post-Licensure Rapid Immunization Safety Monitoring (PRISM) Program as a demonstration project to detect rare adverse events rapidly. The program monitored three million people who had received the H1N1 vaccine by linking data from large private health plans and from public immunization registries that had originally not been designed to share data, and on a larger scale than had been previously attempted. The program generated safety data in two weeks rather than three to six monty 10ths-the standard time frame achievable using health plan data.