Real-time monitoring of the influenza vaccine field effectiveness

Twice a year, the World Health Organization recommends the composition of the influenza vaccine depending on the strains which circulate several months before the beginning of the epidemic. Therefore, it is important to assess the field vaccine effectiveness (FVE) yearly. Thanks to data on vaccine coverage and data on influenza like illness cases collected by the French Sentinel Network, we are able to estimate the FVE few weeks after the beginning of the yearly influenza epidemic. In this paper, we have analysed the estimates obtained for the last 10 epidemic seasons for people over and under 65. Making the assumption that the vaccine coverage is stable from 1 year to another, we are able to assess the level of the FVE few weeks after the beginning of the epidemic and we should detect a lack of effectiveness of the vaccine. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.