Influenza

Revision of the Programme d’immunisation contre l’influenza au Québec

The last report issued by the Comité sur l’immunisation du Québec (CIQ) concerning the Programme d’immunisation contre l’influenza du Québec (PIIQ) [Québec’s Influenza Immunization program] was published in 2007. An update became necessary, given the many scientific advances that have occurred in this field.

The primary objective of the PIIQ must be to reduce influenza-associated hospitalizations and deaths.

To attain this objective, the CIQ recommends maintaining a targeted vaccination strategy for individuals at high risk for hospitalization and death and giving priority to achieving vaccine uptake of at least 80% in these groups.

It is recommended to withdraw healthy children aged 6–23 months and healthy adults aged 60–74 years from the list of groups at high risk for influenza-associated hospitalization and death, but to maintain the other groups currently included in the PIIQ.

The CIQ recommends that all healthcare workers receive the va…

Comité sur l'immunisation du Québec

Use of Live-Attenuated Influenza Virus Vaccine (LAIV), Flumist® in children and adolescents aged 2-17 years of age with chronic conditions

The live attenuated influenza virus vaccine (LAIV), Flumist®, administered by intranasal spray, is approved for people aged 2-59 years. The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) recommended in its statement for the 2011-2012 season that, given its efficacy and immunogenicity, LAIV should be used preferentially for healthy children and adolescents aged 2 to 17 years. NACI also indicates that LAIV can be used for children with chronic diseases, other than immune compromising conditions or severe asthma, but that there were insufficient data to recommend the preferential use of LAIV over trivalent inactivated vaccine (TIV). The Comité sur l'immunisation du Québec (CIQ) also recommended, at its June 2011 meeting, that LAIV should be used preferentially in healthy children aged 2-17 years, particularly among household contacts of people at high risk for complicated influenza infection.

At the December 2011 CIQ meeting, the question of LA…

Comité sur l'immunisation du Québec

Public Health Ethics - Selected Resources: Ethics in a Pandemic

Public health ethics (PHE) is a relatively new field of study that encourages interdisciplinary discussion of moral issues related to the theory and practice of public health and preventive medicine. Emerging over the last 15 years out of dissatisfaction with the traditional orientations of biomedical ethics, PHE involves the explicit use of concepts from ethical, social and political theory to discuss and evaluate collective interventions that aim to protect and promote the health of groups and populations rather than of individuals.

This document has two aims. The first is to serve as a timely introduction to the field of PHE as applied to policy and practice responses to what was perhaps the most visible recent global public health threat, the global influenza AH1N1 pandemic. It is based on a review of the literature on this subject carried out by the National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy (NCCHPP) between May and August of 2009. The review does not…