CIDRAP Lessons Learned: PT III

 

# 4538

 

 

 

CIDRAP (Center For Infectious Disease Research & Policy) presents the third in a series of Lessons Learned reports – written this time by Lisa Schnirring – focusing on the pandemic vaccination campaign.

 

I blogged on the first two reports at:

 

CIDRAP: H1N1 Lessons Learned

CIDRAP’s Lessons Learned: Pt II

 

 

As always with a CIDRAP report, this is well worth following the link and reading in its entirety.

 

 

 

H1N1 LESSONS LEARNED
Vaccination campaign weathered rough road, paid dividends

Lisa Schnirring Staff Writer

This is the third in a series of reports marking the first anniversary of novel H1N1 pandemic influenza. The first and second articles appeared on Apr 23 and Apr 26.

 

Apr 30, 2010 (CIDRAP News) – As the biggest public health initiative in the history of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the H1N1 pandemic vaccination campaign encountered stiff headwinds with scarce supplies and complex messaging but ended up reaching about a quarter of the US population and, some say, smoothing the path for future immunization efforts.

 

About a month after the pandemic flu virus emerged, federal officials ordered vaccines from five different companies at a price tag of $650 million, with $287million more for adjuvants that could be needed if the virus turned out to be severe or if vaccine potency was lower than expected.

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CIDRAP’s Lessons Learned: Pt II

 

 

# 4527

 

 

CIDRAP News, on the one year anniversary of the discovery of the novel H1N1 virus, is running a series of `lessons learned’ articles. The first, written by News Editor Robert Roos, appeared last week (see H1N1 LESSONS LEARNED).

 

Today it is contributing writer Maryn McKenna’s turn, and she looks at the vaccine related lessons learned. 

 

Highly recommended.

 

 

H1N1 LESSONS LEARNED
Vaccine production foiled, confirmed experts' predictions

Maryn McKenna Contributing Writer

Second in a series marking the 1-year anniversary of novel H1N1 pandemic influenza. The first, on the virus itself, appeared Apr 23.

Apr 26, 2010 (CIDRAP News) – Among the many surprises of the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic—its emergence at the end of a flu season, its unexpected toll of mild illness, its almost-complete replacement of circulating seasonal strains—was its reversal of years of received wisdom on how vaccines would be needed to respond.

 

Researchers had predicted, for instance, that to be protected against a novel strain, most members of the population would require two doses of vaccine containing the new pandemic strain. And because that many doses of vaccine would stress the existing vaccine-manufacturing system, other researchers had predicted that the addition of dose-sparing adjuvants to the new vaccine would be crucial to stretch out scarce supplies of newly made antigen.

 

Neither turned out to be true.

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Many of the difficulties encountered with the pandemic vaccine production system were discussed at length in Maryn McKenna’s award winning 7-part series the Pandemic Vaccine Puzzle which she wrote for CIDRAP in 2007.

 

A series that remains just as relevant today as when she wrote it.

 

Part 1: Flu research: a legacy of neglect
Part 2: Vaccine production capacity falls far short
Part 3: H5N1 poses major immunologic challenges
Part 4: The promise and problems of adjuvants
Part 5: What role for prepandemic vaccination?
Part 6: Looking to novel vaccine technologies
Part 7: Time for a vaccine 'Manhattan Project'?
Bibliography

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CIDRAP: H1N1 Lessons Learned

 

 

 

# 4521

 

 

Last night CIDRAP (The Center For Infectious Disease Research And Policy) published what they promise will be the first in a series of special reports on lessons learned from the H1N1 pandemic. 

 

Penned by News Editor Robert Roos, this first installment covers a lot of territory, and it well worth your time to read.

 

CIDRAP also maintains some of the best - and most up-to-date - information on the H1N1 pandemic in their overview entitled Novel H1N1 Influenza (Swine Flu).  

 

This is a resource I turn to often.

 

Robert Roos interviews Columbia Virology Professor Vincent Racaniello, Dan Jernigan of the CDC’s Influenza Division, chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University, William Schaffner, MD, chair of IDSA’s pandemic flu task force Andrew Pravia, M.D., and Associate Professor of Medicine and chair of ACIP’s influenza working group Kathleen M. Neuzil, MD, MPH for this piece.

Some of the topics addressed include:

 

Geographic expectations

Wave pattern

Impact on the population

Health system stressed

The clinical picture

Obesity emerges as risk factor

Danger for pregnant women

Other lessons learned

Outlook for next season

Highly recommended. 

 

I’ll just reproduce the opening to the CIDRAP article.  Follow the link to read it in its entirety.

 

 

H1N1 LESSONS LEARNED

Pandemic underscored influenza's unpredictability

Robert Roos News Editor

Editor's Note: This is the first of a series of articles reviewing the world's experience with pandemic H1N1 influenza and what we've learned in the past year. Look for further installments in the days to come.

 

Apr 23, 2010 (CIDRAP News) – A year's experience with the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus has underscored the endless unpredictability of flu.

 

The virus and the resulting illness defied expectations on many levels. It was first detected in North America, not Southeast Asia. Unlike the pathogens that caused previous pandemics, the virus was not a new subtype, but rather an H1N1 strain, making it a cousin of a seasonal flu strain that's been around for decades.

 

Unlike seasonal flu, though, the illness hit children and nonelderly adults much more than people over 65. It was relatively mild for most people, unlike the 1918 flu or the devastating disease associated with H5N1 avian flu, which had heavily shaped pandemic preparations. But it killed far more children and young people than seasonal flu typically does, with the vast majority of deaths involving people younger than 60.

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