# 7392
While it is early summer in the Northern Hemisphere, in the temperate regions south of the equator winter is setting in, and so is cold and flu season.
After watching a particularly rough flu season unfold in the United States, the residents of Australia and New Zealand have been warned to brace for a busy season.
As a result, vaccine uptake has been particularly brisk this year, and extra vaccine had to be ordered back in May (see Australia Reports Flu Vaccine Shortages).
Our good friend Nick Kelley PhD from CIDRAP has an article appearing today in the Central Queensland News that explains how vaccine effectiveness (VE) studies are conducted, and provides the results of recent VE analyses from both Australia and the United States.
You’ll recall that Nick and Michael T. Osterholm et al. have worked together on a number of vaccine related studies, some of which you can review in these earlier posts:
JAMA: Challenges Of Producing An Effective & Timely H7N9 Vaccine
CIDRAP: The Need For `Game Changing’ Flu Vaccines
I’ve only included an excerpt. Follow the link to read his article in its entirety. I’ll have a little more when you return.
The heart of the matter: how effective is the flu jab?
Nick Kelley, University of Minnesota
13th Jun 2013 6:00 AM
PEOPLE who think influenza vaccines are highly effective may have been surprised at recent news stories saying they're only moderately so.
Although vaccines are still the best tool available to combat this seasonal scourge, their ability to protect lies well below that of other vaccines, such as those given in childhood.
The inactivated influenza vaccine (flu jab) is the only one licensed for use in Australia.
To determine how well these vaccines protect people from the flu, scientists use results from two different types of studies.
The gold standard study is called a randomised controlled trial (RCT). The second type is the observational study.
A little over a year ago, in TEDx UMN: Rethinking Influenza Vaccines, I highlighted a day-long TEDx event at the University of Minnesota.
TEDx is a locally mounted version of the nationally known TED TALKS. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment & Design, and participants are invited to `give the 18 minute talk of their lives’ before a live audience.
During last year’s TEDx, Nick gave a presentation called Rethinking Influenza Vaccines.
Nick’s message was that influenza vaccines – while providing modest (59%) protection in healthy adults (under 65) – are in dire need of improvement. Worse, our inability to produce vaccines quickly seriously limits their value in a pandemic.
Despite these deficits, today’s flu vaccine remain our best weapon against influenza.
Nick argues that our acceptance of today’s vaccine technology as being `good enough’ serves as a psychological barrier to investing in, and developing, better vaccine technologies.
I’ll not give away the rest of his talk, and invite you to watch his 14 minute presentation. Even if you saw it last year, it’s worth revisiting.
