Monitoring the safety of annual and pandemic influenza vaccines: lessons from the US experience

Abstract

Annual use of influenza vaccines represents the largest vaccine campaign conducted in the USA. Recent expansions in influenza vaccine recommendations suggest a move toward ‘universal’ vaccination strategies. Although a great deal of safety data has been accumulated, concerns remain regarding rare, serious adverse events following immunization. A proven association between the 1976–1977 swine influenza vaccine and Guillain–Barré syndrome halted that particular national vaccination campaign. Recently, annual influenza vaccines have been associated with novel adverse events, for example, oculorespiratory syndrome in Canada. Any vaccine used against an influenza strain of pandemic potential will have an incompletely described safety profile. Thus, the challenge of influenza vaccine safety is to detect new safety concerns that may arise during seasonal campaigns, while preparing vaccine safety systems for the timely detection of adverse events in the setting of a pandemic.

Keywords::

• influenza vaccine
• pandemic
• vaccine adverse events
• vaccine safety

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.