Human Milk Processing: A Systematic Review of Innovative Techniques to Ensure the Safety and Quality of Donor Milk.

Pasteurization, performed at 62.5°C for 30 minutes (holder pasteurization), is currently recommended in all international human milk banks guidelines, but it affects some human milk bioactive and nutritive components. The present systematic review is aimed at critically reviewing evidence on the suitability of human milk processing techniques other than holder pasteurization, both thermal and nonthermal, to ensure microbiological safety, and on the effects of these techniques on biologically active donor milk components.

Which health research gets used and why? An empirical analysis of 30 cases.

Background: While health research is considered essential for improving health worldwide, it remains unclear how it is best organized to contribute to health. This study examined research that was part of a Ghanaian-Dutch research program that aimed to increase the likelihood that results would be used by funding research that focused on national research priorities and was led by local researchers. The aim of this study was to map the contribution of this research to action and examine which features of research and translation processes were associated with the use of the results.

Need for Optimisation of Immunisation Strategies Targeting Invasive Meningococcal Disease in the Netherlands.

Invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) is a severe bacterial infectious disease with high mortality and morbidity rates worldwide. In recent years, industrialised countries have implemented vaccines targeting IMD in their National Immunisation Programmes (NIPs). In 2002, the Netherlands successfully implemented a single dose of meningococcal serogroup C conjugate vaccine at the age of 14 months and performed a single catch-up for children ≤18 years of age.

Needs and availability of snake antivenoms: relevance and application of international guidelines.

Background: Snakebite has recently been declared a global public health emergency. Empirical data showing the true burden of snakebite is lacking. Treatment with specific antivenoms is considered the only cure.

Preparing for the next public debate: universal vaccination against hepatitis B.

WHO have long called for universal vaccination against hepatitis B worldwide. However, in north-western Europe low incidence of the disease has fueled debate whether targeted or universal vaccination strategies are the way to go for. Careful assessment has made it clear that the extensive targeted hepatitis B vaccination programmes in the Netherlands nevertheless fail to reach a significant part of the risk groups and have not succeeded in eliminating the disease.

Public vaccination programmes against hepatitis B in The Netherlands: assessing whether a targeted or a universal approach is appropriate.

To date, the policy to control hepatitis B in the Netherlands is to vaccinate specific risk groups, rather than all children. Low incidence of the disease has fueled debate whether such a targeted vaccination strategy or rather a universal strategy, as recommended by the World Health Organization, is appropriate. The standard framework for assessing whether a particular vaccination should be included in a public programme, as recently proposed by the Health Council of the Netherlands (HCN), was applied to the various options for hepatitis B vaccination.

The global introduction of inactivated polio vaccine can circumvent the oral polio vaccine paradox.

This literature review identifies the factors that influence the decision to introduce inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) in developing countries as opposed to the policy of vaccine cessation. Attenuated viruses in the oral polio vaccine (OPV) can replicate, revert to neurovirulence and become transmissible circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPVs), preventing use of the vaccine in the post-eradication era. This literature review identifies (1) risks of complete cessation of vaccination, (2) barriers and (3) solutions for the introduction of IPV in developing countries.

Criteria for inclusion of vaccinations in public programmes.

As more and more new vaccines are developed and brought to the market, governments have to make decisions about which vaccinations to include in public programmes. This paper describes the experience in the Netherlands in developing a framework for assessing whether a vaccination should be included in the National Immunization Programme (NIP). Bearing in mind the public nature, the factors that determine a vaccine's suitability for inclusion in a communal vaccination programme have been translated into seven selection criteria, grouped under five thematic headings: seriousness and extent of the disease burden, effectiveness and safety of the vaccination, acceptability of the vaccination, efficiency of the vaccination, and priority of the vaccination.