Among 95,244 children and adults in Beijing, the PANFLU.1 vaccine had a safety profile similar to those of seasonal influenza vaccines and appeared to be effective against confirmed H1N1 virus infection in school-age children. (Funded by the Beijing Municipal Health Bureau.).

Background-Varicella vaccine is available in the private sector in China, with a single dose currently recommended for children aged ≥12 months. We investigated a varicella outbreak in a school in Beijing with high varicella vaccination coverage to describe the outbreak, examine risk factors for vaccine failure, and calculate vaccine effectiveness.Methods-A varicella case was defined as an acute generalized maculopapular rash without other apparent cause in a student without prior varicella attending the elementary school during August 30-December 28, 2010. Varicella among vaccinated students (breakthrough varicella) was defined as varicella occurring >42 days after vaccination. Students' vaccination status was verified with immunization records and clinical presentations were collected from health care practitioners.Results-Of the 951 students, 934 (98%) had no prior varicella history. Among these students, 916 had received 1 dose of varicella vaccine and 2 had received 2 doses (98% vaccination coverage) before the outbreak. A total of 87 cases occurred during the outbreak; most had breakthrough varicella (86/87, 99%) and mild disease (83/87, 95%). Age at vaccination (<15 months vs.≥15 months) and time since vaccination before outbreak (<5 years vs. ≥5 years) were not associated with development of breakthrough varicella. Single-dose varicella vaccination was 89% effective in preventing any varicella and 99% in preventing moderate/severe varicella.Conclusion-Single-dose varicella vaccination is highly effective in reducing varicella incidence and mitigating disease severity, but not high enough to prevent outbreak. A two-dose program might help to prevent varicella outbreaks in Beijing.

Little data are available on the overall incidence and characteristics of herpes zoster (HZ) in China, thus a community-based retrospective survey was conducted during December 2012 to March 2013 to collect HZ incident data over the past year in selected districts of Beijing, China. A total of 237 incident HZ cases were identified from 118,220 residents and majority of HZ patients (219/237, 92.4%) sought healthcare. Annual HZ incident rates were 1.90/1000 after adjusted and higher among females (2.4/1000) than males (1.7/1000). HZ rates increased with age and with a sharply rise among those aged ≥50 years particular for female. 217 cases were available for interview with 193 (88.9%) primary, 24 (11.1%) recurrent and 10 (4.6%) postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) cases respectively. No difference was shown between the primary and recurrent HZ cases in sex (P = 0.42), age (P = 0.72), times of healthcare seeking (P = 0.45), number of dermatome (P = 0.72), pain degree (P = 0.54), and hospitalization (P = 1.0). According to the survey, it can be speculated that disease burden of HZ is serious and caused at least 2.77 million cases annually in China. The recurrent HZ cases has similar characteristics to primary HZ cases. High proportion of healthcare seeking reminds that HIS records would be a feasible source for HZ surveillance to evaluate the trends and changes in China.

No abstract

Background The objectives of this review were to evaluate the vaccine effectiveness (VE) of the two-dose varicella vaccine for healthy children in China and explore the application of the approach of Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) in observational studies on VE. Methods We searched for observational studies on two-dose varicella VE for children in China aged 1–12 years that were published from 1997 to 2019, and assessed the quality of each study using the Newcastle Ottawa Scale (NOS). We used meta-analysis models to obtain the pooled two-dose VE, and the studies were divided into subgroups and analysed according to whether or not it was an outbreak investigation and its NOS score. The quality of evidence of VEs were rated by approach of the GRADE system. Results A total of 12 studies and 87,196 individuals were included. The pooled two-dose VE was 90% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 69–97%). The VE of outbreak studies (87% [95% CI: 76–93%]) was lower than non-outbreak studies (99% [95% CI: 98–99%]). There was no significant difference in VEs by different NOS quality. The quality of the evidence assessment of pooled two-dose VE was “low”, which was rated down by one category in limitations and publication bias respectively and rated up by two category in large effect. The quality of evidence assessment in subgroup of NOS score ≥ 7 was “moderate”. Conclusions The VE of two-dose varicella vaccine is relatively high in preventing varicella, and is recommended for countries which need further control for varicella. However, higher quality evidence is needed as a supplement for stronger recommendations. The approach of GRADE could be applied for rating the quality of evidence in observational study.