Related papers: Influenza Virus Vaccine Efficacy Based On Conserve…

Influenza is a contagious respiratory illness that causes significant human morbidity and mortality, affecting 5-15% of the population in a typical epidemic season. Human influenza epidemics are caused by types A and B, with roughly 25% of…

H1N1 influenza causes substantial seasonal illness and was the subtype of the 2009 influenza pandemic. Precise measures of antigenic distance between the vaccine and circulating virus strains help researchers design influenza vaccines with…

We introduce a new measure of antigenic distance between influenza A vaccine and circulating strains. The measure correlates well with efficacies of the H3N2 influenza A component of the annual vaccine between 1971 and 2004, as do results…

Seasonal influenza presents an ongoing challenge to public health. The rapid evolution of the flu virus necessitates annual vaccination campaigns, but the decision to get vaccinated or not in a given year is largely voluntary, at least in…

Influenza A is a serious disease that causes significant morbidity and mortality, and vaccines against the seasonal influenza disease are of variable effectiveness. In this paper, we discuss use of the $p_{\rm epitope}$ method to predict…

Minimizing time delays in manufacturing vaccines appropriate to rapidly mutating viruses is the key step for improving vaccine effectiveness. The vaccine for the H3N2 flu type has failed for the last two years (~ 15% effective). Here we…

The containment of epidemic spreading is a major challenge in science. Vaccination, whenever available, is the best way to prevent the spreading, because it eventually immunizes individuals. However, vaccines are not perfect, and total…

Influenza has been circulating in the human population and has caused three pandemics in the last century (1918 H1N1, 1957 H2N2, 1968 H3N2). The 2009 A(H1N1) was classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the fourth pandemic.…

We predict vaccine efficacy with a measure of antigenic distance between influenza A(H3N2) and candidate vaccine viruses based on amino acid substitutions in the dominant epitopes. In 2016-2017, our model predicts 19% efficacy compared to…

Background: Globally, influenza is a major cause of morbidity, hospitalization and mortality. Influenza vaccination has shown substantial protective effectiveness in the United States. We investigated state-level patterns of coverage rates…

Finding optimal policies to reduce the morbidity and mortality of the ongoing pandemic is a top public health priority. Using a compartmental model with age structure and vaccination status, we examined the effect of age specific scheduling…

Determining whether vaccine efficacy wanes is important for individual and public decision making. Yet, quantification of waning is a subtle task. The classical approaches cannot be interpreted as measures of declining efficacy unless we…

Seasonal influenza is a significant public health concern in the United States and globally. While influenza vaccines are the single most effective intervention to reduce influenza morbidity and mortality, there is considerable debate…

The threat of avian influenza and the 2004-2005 influenza vaccine supply shortage in the United States has sparked a debate about optimal vaccination strategies to reduce the burden of morbidity and mortality caused by the influenza virus.…

Safe and effective preventive vaccines have the potential to help stem the HIV epidemic. The efficacy of such vaccines is typically measured in randomized, double-blind phase IIb/III trials and described as a reduction in newly acquired HIV…

The unfolding of pandemic influenza A(H1N1) for Fall 2009 in the Northern Hemisphere is still uncertain. Plans for vaccination campaigns and vaccine trials are underway, with the first batches expected to be available early October. Several…

Knowing the true effect size of clinical interventions in randomised clinical trials is key to informing the public health policies. Vaccine efficacy is defined in terms of the relative risk or the ratio of two disease risks. However, only…

Observational data are often used to estimate real-world effectiveness and durability of vaccines. A sequence of trials can be emulated to draw inference from such data while minimizing selection bias, immortal time bias, and confounding.…

A central challenge in every field of biology is to use existing measurements to predict the outcomes of future experiments. In this work, we consider the wealth of antibody inhibition data against variants of the influenza virus. Due to…

Inspired by Minority Games, we constructed a novel individual-level game of adaptive decision-making based on the dilemma of deciding whether to participate in voluntary influenza vaccination programs. The proportion of the population…