The 24th National Immunisation Conference for Health Care Workers was held on Friday, 6th December 2013 at the Manchester Conference Centre. Over 200 delegates attended this event sponsored by educational grants from Crucell, Glaxo Smith Kline, Pfizer Vaccines, and Sanofi Pasteur. A number of speakers took the opportunity kindly afforded by Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics to write up their conference presentation as a paper for this special supplement.
The conference started with Professor Liz Miller (Health Protection Agency, UK) discussing “Hot topics in immunization,” followed by presentations addressing early experiences with rotavirus and live attenuated flu vaccine by Dr Mary Ramsay (Public Health England, UK) and Professor Nick Phin (Public Health England, UK) respectively. Professor Markus Rose (Goethe University, Germany) then explored “Mucosal immunization in perspective—pediatric influenza vaccines.” This covered the potential advantages of intranasal application of live attenuated influenza vaccine in children, its relative equivalent or superior immunogenicity, and efficacy at the upper and lower respiratory tract. This is described in more detail later in this supplement. In addition, Professor Markus Rose also presents “Mucosal immunity and acute viral gastroenteritis—the example rotavirus,” discussing rotavirus immunity and how following introduction of rotavirus vaccines for infant immunization programs in different parts of the world, vaccination against rotavirus has resulted in substantial declines in severe gastroenteritis.
The next conference session focused on immunization in the young and elderly. Professor Paul Heath and Dr Chrissie Jones (St George’s, University of London, UK) presented a full review of antenatal immunization; they discussed the concept and rationale for maternal vaccination and mechanisms of placental transport of antibody. An assessment was made of the safety of vaccination during pregnancy, and the challenges associated with this were considered, these presentations are delivered as a single comprehensive paper in this supplement. Professor Adam Finn (University of Bristol, UK) then presented “Varicella zoster vaccine in infants and children” followed by a shift of focus to the elder by Professor Judy Breuer (University College, London, UK) who described the situation concerning “Shingles vaccine in older people.”
The third session of the conference commenced with a comprehensive presentation by Professor Gill Rowlands (King’s College, London, UK) on “Health literacy: Ways to maximize the impact and effectiveness of vaccination information.” As shown later in this supplement, Professor Rowlands described the complex concepts of reading and numeracy skills in relation to health and outlined strategies which can improve access to healthcare information for all patients, whatever their literacy level. This session then focused on HPV vaccination; Dr Kate Soldan (Health Protection Agency, UK) considered “Experiences on using HPV vaccine among girls in the UK” while Professor Margaret Stanley (University of Cambridge, UK) then went on to discuss “Extending HPV vaccination to boys.” Professor Stanley described how in developed countries such as those in Western Europe the burden of HPV associated cancers in men is comparable to that in women, but could be substantially reduced if boys were immunized. This would result in true herd immunity with rapid decline in viral load in the population. In this context failure to implement male vaccination could be considered a missed public health opportunity.
In the first of the two afternoon symposia Dr Phillip Minor (National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, UK) described the “Polio End Game” in his presentation Dr Minor discussed the history and pathogenesis of poliomyelitis, the progress made, and considered the challenges faced in sustaining the eradication of this debilitating infectious disease. Following this Laura Craig (Health Protection Agency, UK) gave a presentation discussing “Reducing vaccine errors.” Dr David Elliman (Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, UK) went on to describe “Delivering vaccinations in the new NHS,” while Dr Helen Bedford (University College, London) highlighted the important topic of “Talking with parents about vaccine concerns.” Addressing the issue of how healthcare including immunization can adapt to, and maximize the usefulness of, modern technological culture; Ms Sarah Amani (Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, UK) gave a presentation on the “Effectiveness of social media—roles in increasing public health awareness and vaccination.” This symposium was concluded with a comprehensive presentation by Dr David Baxter (Manchester University Medical School, UK) discussing “Active and passive immunization for cancer.” As described in this supplement his presentation outlined the differences between active and passive vaccines, discussed their use in treating cancer and concluded that these vaccines will not be used for treatment alone but will be part of a therapeutic approach that involves traditional modalities.
The second and final symposia of the afternoon focused on immunization for travelers. Dr Vanessa Field (National Travel Health Network and Centre, UK) started the session by describing the “Hot topics in travel medicine” this was followed by Dr Hilary Kirkbride (Health Protection Agency, UK) who outlined the situation with regard to “Rabies—how are UK Travelers putting themselves at risk?” Ms Randi Hammer-Boge (Norway) presented on the important topic of “Advising the pregnant traveler.” Dr Ron Behrens (University College, London, UK) discussed “Can we prevent travelers’ diarrhoea?” and the session concluded with “Travel health FAQs” presented by Carolyn Driver (Independent Travel Health and Immunization Specialist Nurse Cheshire, UK).
Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest
No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.
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