Dear Reader,
Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics regularly puts a special focus on timely and interesting topics and developments in the field of vaccines and immunotherapies. We are pleased to present a Special Focus (SF) on Vaccine Acceptance. In collaboration with our Associate Editor Dr Kristen A Feemster from the Children`s Hospital of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA, USA), we have assembled a broad selection of Reviews, Original Research papers and Commentaries discussing various aspects of knowledge, attitudes, acceptance and uptake rates of different vaccines. After two previous Special Features on this topic (issues 9–8 and 9–12), we are happy to present our third and most comprehensive Special Focus on Vaccine Acceptance to date, with 23 contributions provided by recognized experts in this field. The first group of articles in this SF look at various aspects of HPV vaccine: the connection between intention to recommend HPV vaccine and HPV vaccination rates (Middleton, p. 2519), knowledge, attitude and uptake of HPV vaccination among young German women (Walter, p. 2527), HPV vaccination in male adolescents in Italy (Bianco, p. 2536), the global response to Japan`s withdrawal of their HPV vaccine recommendation (Larson, p. 2543), emergency medicine physician attitudes toward HPV vaccine uptake in an emergency department setting (Hill, p. 2551), accompanied by a commentary on challenges and opportunities for adolescent HPV vaccination (Perkins, p. 2557), and a commentary discussing the vision of protecting a new generation of subjects against HPV infection (Crosby, p. 2559). Clinical experience, challenges and opportunities of maternal immunization are reviewed (Moniz, p. 2562) and discussed in two commentaries (Frew, p. 2557 and Bradley, p. 2574), and one study looks at factors associated with maternal decision-making for influenza vaccination (Owens, p. 2576). The SF also offers a review on factors contributing to parental vaccine-hesitancy (Williams, p. 2584), two accompanying commentaries (Healy, p. 2597 and Leask, p. 2600), and a Canadian study on parental concerns about vaccine safety (Schopflocher, p. 2603). Attitude toward immunization and risk perception of several infectious diseases in health-care workers is the subject of an Italian study (Taddei, p. 2612), and is further discussed in three associated commentaries (Corace, p. 2623, Graitcer, p. 2625 and Wicker, p. 2625). Commentaries on health-care professionals and adolescent vaccination (Zimet, p. 2629), impact of physician recommendation (Darden, p. 2632), and social-media targeting of health messages (Betsch, p. 2636) round out this SF.
The section Novel Vaccines features studies on pharmacological effects of two anti-methamphetamine monoclonal antibodies (Laurenzana, p. 2638), truncated Abrin A as a vaccine candidate (Zhang, p. 2648), and immunogenicity and safety of Japanese Encephalitis Chimeric Virus (JE-CV) vaccine in Korean children (Kim, p. 2656). A review on vaccine development for sexually transmitted Chlamydia trachomatis (Rey-Ladino, p. 2664), as well as two commentaries on the relevance of dengue virus genotypes surveillance prior to vaccine approval (Usme-Ciro, p. 2674) and the potential to increase DNA vaccine potency by encoding novel forms of HSP70 (Garrod, p. 2679) can also be found in this section.
Several contributions fall into the category Licensed Vaccines: a review on licensed pertussis vaccines in the United States (Klein, p. 2684), studies on preclinical evaluation of a Haemophilus influenza type b conjugate vaccine (HibCV) process intended for technology transfer (Hamidi, p. 2691), use of immuno-assays during the development of a HibCV for tech transfer to emerging country vaccine manufacturers (Hamidi, p. 2697), reduction of neutralizing antibody against heterologous circulating strains in adults immunized with live Japanese encephalitis vaccine (Ye, p. 2704), surveillance of causative agents for bacterial meningitis during 2005 and 2012 in Turkey (Ceyhan, p. 2706).
Three contribution on Influenza look at cellular and humoral immune responses in adults following intradermal or intramuscular administration of influenza vaccine ((Nougarede, p. 2713), infants and the seasonal influenza vaccine (Moriarty, p. 2721), and making evidence-based selections of influenza vaccines (Childress, p. 2729).
The Immunotherapeutics track features a review on the use of signal peptide domains as vaccine candidates (Kovjazin, p. 2733) and a commentary discussing Alzheimer disease immunotherapeutics (Jindal, p. 2741).
A physico-chemical assessment of the thermal stability of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine components (Gao, p. 2744) and a Letter from the Editor on pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (Ellis, p. 2754) can be found in the Pneumococcal section.
Finally, one paper related to Hepatitis evaluates the perinatal Hepatitis B prevention program in Shandong Province in China (Zhang, p. 2755), and a review in the Technology section summarizes applications of nanomaterials as vaccine adjuvants (Zhu, p. 2761).
In our monthly News, Policy and Profiles (NP&p.) track we offer 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 Eva Riedmann with your ideas for commentaries, opinion pieces, profiles and portraits. Your suggestions for and contributions to our N&P&P track are always welcome!
Last but not least, we want to draw your attention to several popular web site features, which are usuable on all electronic devices, such as mobile phones and tablets, an RSS feed to see the latest published papers, and a HV&I facebook account for daily updates.
Sincerely,
Ronald Ellis, PhD
Editor-in-Chief
Eva M Riedmann, PhD
Acquisitions Editor