Dear reader,
On behalf of the Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics Editorial Team, we wish you a happy and successful year 2019.
We would like to thank all Associate Editors, Editorial Board members and Reviewers for their support and help in maintaining high quality of the journal. We are delighted to announce that the Reviewer of the Year Award for 2018 goes to Dr. Aiqiang Xu of Shandong Center for Disease Prevention and Control, with a list of all those who have reviewed papers for HV&I during the last year (p 2).
Last year the vaccinology world lost a pioneer in Dr. Ray Spier; you can read about his career in a Portrait (p 11).
In the Licensed Vaccines section, we introduce two reviews on economic aspects of pertussis vaccination in adolescents and adults (Fernandes, p 14) and measles vaccination during the elimination endgame (Hayman, p 28), a cost-effectiveness analysis of the recombinant zoster vaccine in the German elderly (Van Oorschot, p 34), a commentary on herpes zoster vaccination in SLE patients (Mok, p 45), a systematic review of vaccination herd effects in Latin America (DeAntonio, p 49), and a modeling study of antibody persistence after pediatric Japanese encephalitis virus vaccination (Bouckenooghe, p 72).
The Influenza section includes five research articles on effectiveness of H7N9 vaccine in healthy subjects (Zheng, p 80), possible connection between influenza vaccination status and application of respiratory viral panel testing in subjects with acute respiratory disease (Balasubramani, p 91), vaccine effectiveness in Hong Kong during the 2017/8 season (Chan, p 97), vaccination coverage among cystic fibrosis patients in a text-messaging campaign (Zoni, p 102), and a case of bilateral deafness following vaccination (Kolarov, p 107).
We present four articles on Acceptance: a commentary on the level of vaccine education for midwives in Australia (Attwell, p 109), an overview of vaccine attitudes among mothers in Quebec, Canada (Dubé, p 113) and uninsured Latin American immigrant mothers in the US (Painter, p 121), and an analysis of knowledge and attitudes of Turkish healthcare workers to treatment and prevention of bacterial meningitis (Dinleyici, p 134).
The HPV section features an analysis of the transfer of maternal antibodies following immunization with the 9-valent vaccine (Guevara, p 141), a review of disparities of vaccination rates in the US (Hirth, p 146), study of knowledge and beliefs about the disease and vaccination among Malaysian healthcare students and professionals (Badgujar, p 156), and a case report on mass psychogenic illness following reports of vaccine-related adverse events (Simas, p 163).
Three articles on Immunotherapy include an evaluation of a peptide vaccine targeting two proteins associated with head-and-neck cancer (Chai, p 167), introduction of a TLR9-targeting immune-stimulation platform for use with dendritic cell vaccines (Sepulveda, p 180), and a commentary on macrophage-targeting immunotherapies (Peranzoni, p 190).
Three articles on Novel Vaccines examine the potential benefits of new group B streptococcal vaccines (Hartley, p 194), poxviral promoters for improving the immunogenicity of MVA-delivered vaccines (Alharbi, p 204), and the potential of the recombinant surface antigen TSA-1 for treatment of Trypanosoma cruzi infection (de la Cruz, p 211).
The Hepatitis B section presents a systematic review of suitable vaccines for adult immunization in China (Wu, p 221), a report on infant vaccination in rural China among the 1997-2011 birth cohorts (Wangen, p 229), and antibody persistence analysis in adolescents vaccinated in infancy with four doses of the hexavalent combination vaccine (Schwarz, p 236).
Finally we are happy to introduce an epidemiology study of invasive Meningococcal disease with implication for vaccination (Stein-Zamir, p 243), a Phase 3 trial of safety and immunogenicity of the 23-valent Pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (Huang, p 250), comparison of sample size calculation Methods for non-inferiority vaccine trials (Yang, p 257), and a review of the use of IgY antibodies as Passive Vaccines against respiratory infections (Abbas, p 265).
Our monthly News, Policy and Profiles (NP&P) track offers a selection of the latest news in the field of vaccines and immunotherapeutics. In this section we also regularly publish opinion pieces on timely, interesting and controversial topics related to vaccines and immunotherapeutics, profiles of companies and organizations, as well as portraits of distinguished scientists in our field. Please contact Acquisitions Editor Adam Weiss ([email protected]) with your ideas for commentaries, opinion pieces, profiles and portraits. Your suggestions for and contributions to our N&P&P track are always welcome!
Sincerely,
Ronald Ellis, PhD
Editor-in-Chief
Adam Weiss, PhD
Acquisitions Editor