Publications by authors named "Esa Ruokokoski"
Safe vaccination is essential for mitigation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two adenoviral vector vaccines, ChAdOx1 nCov-19 (AstraZeneca) and Ad26.COV2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Live vaccines potentially have non-specific effects that protect against other infections than those the vaccines are targeted against. The national vaccination program (NVP) in Finland was changed on September 1st, 2006: before BCG vaccine was given to all newborn babies and afterwards to babies in risk groups only. We used this natural experiment to study the non-specific effects of BCG in the frame of NVP using before-after design.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In the nation-wide double-blind cluster-randomised Finnish Invasive Pneumococcal disease trial (FinIP, ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00861380, NCT00839254), we assessed the indirect impact of the 10-valent pneumococcal Haemophilus influenzae protein D conjugate vaccine (PHiD-CV10) against five pneumococcal disease syndromes.
Methods: Children 6 weeks to 18 months received PHiD-CV10 in 48 clusters or hepatitis B/A-vaccine as control in 24 clusters according to infant 3+1/2+1 or catch-up schedules in years 2009-2011.
Background: A bivalent HPV vaccine (Cervarix®; HPV2, GlaxoSmithKline) was introduced into the Finnish national vaccination programme (NVP) in November 2013 for girls aged 11-13 years with a catch-up for 14-15 year-olds. We evaluated the association between HPV2 and selected autoimmune diseases and clinical syndromes by conducting a nation-wide retrospective register-based cohort study.
Methods: First life-time occurrences of the relevant ICD-10 codes in girls aged 11-15 years between Nov-2013 and Dec-2016 were obtained from the national hospital discharge register.
Article Synopsis
- Estimating the disease burden of Streptococcus pneumoniae is difficult due to challenges in identifying the cause of respiratory infections.
- The FinIP trial, which involved over 47,000 children, assessed the impact of the PHiD-CV10 vaccine and collected data through Finnish health-care registers over a multi-year follow-up period.
- Results showed significant reductions in various diseases, particularly mild upper respiratory infections, with specific incidence rates indicating high levels of vaccine-preventable diseases, while underreporting of severe cases remains an issue.
Introduction: Limited data are available on population-level herd effects of infant 10-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV10) programmes on pneumonia. We assessed national trends in pneumococcal and all-cause pneumonia hospitalisations in adults aged ≥18 years, before and after infant PCV10 introduction in 2010.
Methods: Monthly hospitalisation rates of International Statistical Classification of Diseases, 10th revision (ICD-10)-coded primary discharge diagnoses compatible with pneumonia from 2004-2005 to 2014-2015 were calculated with population denominators from the population register.
Background: Measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccinations have been offered to Finnish children at 14-18 months and 6 years of age. In May 2011, the recommended age for the first vaccine dose was lowered to 12 months because of the European measles epidemic.
Methods: Fingertip capillary blood samples were collected from 3-year-old Finnish children vaccinated once with MMR vaccine at 11-19 months of age.
Background: We evaluated the impact of the new pneumococcal Haemophilus influenzae protein D conjugate vaccine (PHiD-CV10, GSK Vaccines) on tympanostomy tube placements (TTPs).
Methods: Finnish Invasive Pneumococcal disease vaccine trial was a nationwide phase III/IV cluster-randomized, double-blind trial. Children younger than 19 months received PHiD-CV10 in two thirds of clusters (N = 52) or hepatitis B or A vaccine as control in 26 clusters according to 3 + 1 or 2 + 1 schedules (infants younger than 7 months) or catch-up schedules.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigated the impact of the ten-valent pneumococcal Haemophilus influenzae protein D conjugate vaccine (PHiD-CV10) on antimicrobial drug prescriptions in children with respiratory infections.
- Over 47,000 children under 19 months were involved, with 30,527 infants analyzed, revealing that those vaccinated showed an 8% reduction in outpatient antimicrobial purchases compared to the control group.
- The findings indicated that approximately five children needed to be vaccinated to prevent one outpatient antimicrobial purchase over two years, reflecting the vaccine's effectiveness in reducing infection-related medication use.
Background: The Finnish Invasive Pneumococcal disease (FinIP) vaccine trial was designed to assess the effectiveness of a pneumococcal vaccine containing ten serotype-specific polysaccharides conjugated to Haemophilus influenzae protein D, tetanus toxoid, and diphtheria toxoid as the carrier proteins (PHiD-CV10) against invasive pneumococcal disease.
Methods: In this cluster-randomised, double-blind trial, children aged younger than 19 months received PHiD-CV10 in 52 clusters or hepatitis vaccines as control in 26 clusters. Infants aged younger than 7 months at the first vaccination received either a 3+1 or a 2+1 vaccination schedule, children aged 7-11 months received a 2+1 schedule, and those 12-18 months of age received a two-dose schedule.
In STGG (skim milk, tryptone, glucose, glycerol) medium at -80 degrees C, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, and Moraxella catarrhalis isolates survived for at least 3 years, and the same species have survived in nasopharyngeal swabs for at least 1.5 years. At -20 degrees C, S.
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