Amsterdam, October 14, 2008 – Last month during an influenza conference organized by the European Scientific Working Group on influenza (ESWI), the Elsevier journal Vaccine released a supplement dedicated to influenza vaccines (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0264410X). This publication provides a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview on influenza vaccines and was supported by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA).
Influenza, commonly known as (the) Flu, continues to be a major cause of mortality, and vaccination remains the mainstay of efforts to prevent and control the disease. Flu spreads around the world in seasonal epidemics, killing millions of people in pandemic and hundreds of thousands in non-pandemic years.
In their editorial in the supplement, Marie Paule Kieny and Keiji Fukuda of the World Health Organization (WHO) specifically address the pandemic influenza vaccine challenge and stress: "that an efficient response at the outset of an influenza pandemic will depend on the robust global surveillance systems implemented by the WHO's Global Influenza Surveillance Network".
The Vaccine supplement focuses entirely on new developments in the area of human influenza vaccines, by bringing together key experts from many of the relevant disciplines in this field. "It is a highly valuable and very timely publication and I am convinced that it will be well-read across the world" stated Co-Guest Editor Gregory Poland, from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, USA.
The 3rd European Influenza Conference in Portugal was organized by ESWI and had a scientific program including every aspect of influenza prevention, control and treatment. Beyond the science, the conference also offered sessions and workshops for governmental representatives and opinion leaders in healthcare. ESWI President and Co-Guest Editor of the Vaccine supplement Ab Osterhaus, from the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, considered the meeting a great success and said: "Communication and cooperation between scientists, policy makers and healthcare professionals is key to significantly reducing the burden of influenza, and the conference facilitated that process perfectly".
Source: Elsevier