No abstract

In 2017, influenza seasonal activity was high in the southern hemisphere. We present interim influenza vaccine effectiveness (VE) estimates from Australia. Adjusted VE was low overall at 33% (95% confidence interval (CI): 17 to 46), 50% (95% CI: 8 to 74) for A(H1)pdm09, 10% (95% CI: -16 to 31) for A(H3) and 57% (95% CI: 41 to 69) for influenza B. For A(H3), VE was poorer for those vaccinated in the current and prior seasons.

Wenqing Zhang 2 | On behalf of the WHO RSV Surveillance Group This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

BackgroundAntibiotic allergy labels are associated with sub-optimal prescribing patterns and poorer clinical outcomes in non-cancer populations, but the effect of labelling on antimicrobial usage in patients with cancer is unknown.FindingsA retrospective review of hospitalized patients admitted to the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (2010-2012) identified 23 % of cancer patients (n = 198) with an antimicrobial allergy label (AA). Comparison of those with an antimicrobial allergy label to those without demonstrated increased antibiotic use per admission (3 vs. 2, p = 0.01), increased fluoroquinolone use (11 % vs. 6 %, p < 0.05), increased antibiotic course duration (15 vs. 13 days, p = 0.09), higher readmission rates (53 % vs. 28 %, p < 0.001) and poorer concordance with prescribing guidelines (47 % vs. 91 %, p < 0.001). Patients in the AA group on multivariate analysis had a higher number of antibiotics employed, longer duration of antibiotic therapy and higher rate of readmission.ConclusionsAntimicrobial usage, including the use of restricted antibiotics, is higher in patients with cancer. Antibiotic de-labelling strategies in cancer patients must be evaluated to aid antimicrobial stewardship initiatives.