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SAGE, the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunizations, advises the WHO (World Health Organization) on policies and strategies for vaccination around the world.
Earlier today, the WHO released a vaccination Briefing note based on SAGE’s latest recommendations. (see WHO Briefing Note # 14: Vaccine Policies And Strategies)
Helen Branswell, ace medical reporter for The Canadian Press, untangles some of the complexities of this SAGE advice, including a reversal of an earlier recommendation that unadjuvanted vaccines be provided to pregnant women whenever possible.
As always with a Branswell report, it’s worth taking the time to read the whole thing.
Single H1N1 shot sufficient, pregnant women can use adjuvanted vaccine: WHO
By Helen Branswell Medical Reporter (CP)
A single dose of H1N1 vaccine should be adequate for all age groups, even very young children, and pregnant women should feel free to use vaccine containing adjuvant, an expert committee that advises the World Health Organization on vaccine issues reported Friday.
The group, known by the acronym SAGE, said vaccines containing boosting additives called adjuvants and vaccines that are adjuvant-free appear to be equally safe and there is no need to recommend pregnant women get the latter on a preferential basis.
"This is based on the fact that the safety profiles of adjuvanted vaccine and the non-adjuvanted vaccine are very similar, and the fact that the non-adjuvanted vaccine has been recommended for pregnant women for many, many years," Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, director of the WHO's initiative for vaccine research, said in reporting on the recommendations of the panel.
"So there is no reason, in SAGE's view, to distinguish between both types of vaccines."
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