WHO Says Add H1N1 to Next Season's Trivalent Vaccine

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WHO Says Add H1N1 to Next Season's Trivalent Vaccine
By Todd Neale, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Published: February 18, 2010

The trivalent influenza vaccine for the 2010-2011 flu season in the Northern Hemisphere should include the pandemic H1N1 strain, the World Health Organization recommended.

The virus would displace the seasonal H1N1 strain in this season's vaccine.

On a conference call with reporters, Keiji Fukuda, MD, MPH, special adviser to the WHO director-general on pandemic influenza, stressed that the recommendation does not indicate that the pandemic is over.

"The recommendation to put the pandemic virus in the upcoming vaccine really means that this has been a dominant virus, and it is expected that it will continue to be a very significant virus circulating around the world," he said.

A panel of experts convened by WHO made the recommendation because the vast majority of viruses isolated over the past year have been the pandemic strain, whereas very few seasonal H1N1 viruses have been seen.

The other two viruses included in the vaccine should continue to be representative seasonal A and B influenza viruses (A/Perth/16/2009 (H3N2) and B/Brisbane/60/2008), which were sampled at much lower rates than the pandemic strain but continued to persist throughout the season, according to the guidance.

Fukuda said an emergency committee would meet next week to determine whether the pandemic had entered the post-peak period, which would represent a transition from full-blown pandemic to a more normal situation.

Such a determination would indicate that overall disease activity would likely continue to decline, Fukuda said, although isolated outbreaks could still occur.

"At this point, we have to say that the pandemic is not over," said Fukuda, stressing that vaccination against the pandemic virus remains important.

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