Abstract
Background: In the United Kingdom (UK), in recent influenza seasons, children are offered a quadrivalent live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV4), and eligible adults mainly trivalent inactivated vaccine (TIV). Aim: To estimate the UK end-of-season 2017/18 adjusted vaccine effectiveness (aVE) and the seroprevalence in England of antibodies against influenza viruses cultured in eggs or tissue. Methods: This observational study employed the test-negative case–control approach to estimate aVE in primary care. The population-based seroprevalence survey used residual age-stratified samples. Results: Influenza viruses A(H3N2) (particularly subgroup 3C.2a2) and B (mainly B/Yamagata/16/88-lineage, similar to the quadrivalent vaccine B-virus component but mismatched to TIV) dominated. All-age aVE was 15% (95% confidence interval (CI): −6.3 to 32) against all influenza; −16.4% (95% CI: −59.3 to 14.9) against A(H3N2); 24.7% (95% CI: 1.1 to 42.7) against B and 66.3% (95% CI: 33.4 to 82.9) against A(H1N1)pdm09. For 2–17 year olds, LAIV4 aVE was 26.9% (95% CI: −32.6 to 59.7) against all influenza; −75.5% (95% CI: −289.6 to 21) against A(H3N2); 60.8% (95% CI: 8.2 to 83.3) against B and 90.3% (95% CI: 16.4 to 98.9) against A(H1N1)pdm09. For ≥ 18 year olds, TIV aVE against influenza B was 1.9% (95% CI: −63.6 to 41.2). The 2017 seroprevalence of antibody recognising tissue-grown A(H3N2) virus was significantly lower than that recognising egg-grown virus in all groups except 15–24 year olds. Conclusions: Overall aVE was low driven by no effectiveness against A(H3N2) possibly related to vaccine virus egg-adaption and a new A(H3N2) subgroup emergence. The TIV was not effective against influenza B. LAIV4 against influenza B and A(H1N1)pdm09 was effective.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 1800488 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Eurosurveillance |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue number | 31 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Aug 2019 |
Funding
SL has received university funding for studies of post vaccination adverse events of interest from GSK, and for attitudes to vaccination from Seqirus; and has been a member of Seqirus and Sanofi advisory boards. MD received lecturing fee from Sanofi Pasteur MSD; SpeeDx provided partial financial support for an educational meeting and UK Clinical Virology Network (UK CVN) which he chairs is a registered charity which includes a number of commercial partners. CM has received funding as an advisory board member of Seqirus. No other co-authors had conflicts to declare.
Keywords
- influenza vaccine
- vaccine effectiveness
- United Kingdom