Beyond efficacy: The full public health impact of vaccines.

There is an active discussion in the public health community on how to assess and incorporate, in addition to safety and measures of protective efficacy, the full public health value of preventive vaccines into the evidence-based decision-making process of vaccine licensure and recommendations for public health use. The conference "Beyond efficacy: the full public health impact of vaccines in addition to efficacy measures in trials" held in Annecy, France (June 22-24, 2015) has addressed this issue and provided recommendations on how to better capture the whole public health impact of vaccines. Using key examples, the expert group stressed that we are in the midst of a new paradigm in vaccine evaluation, where all aspects of public health value of vaccines beyond efficacy should be evaluated.

Immunogenicity, safety, and interchangeability of two inactivated hepatitis A vaccines in Chilean children.

Objectives: To compare the immunogenicity, safety, and interchangeability of two pediatric hepatitis A vaccines, Avaxim 80U-Pediatric and Havrix 720, in Chilean children.

Methods: In this randomized trial, 332 hepatitis A virus (HAV) seronegative children from 1 to 15 years of age received two doses of Avaxim, two doses of Havrix, or Havrix followed by Avaxim, 6 months apart. Anti-HAV antibody titers were measured before and 14 days after the first dose of vaccine, and before and 28 days after the second dose of vaccine.

The real cost of rabies post-exposure treatments.

The total costs to all payers, i.e., a societal perspective, of four rabies post-exposure regimens were evaluated in two dog bite centres and four local health centres in India.