Self-reported adverse reactions in 4337 healthcare workers immunizations against novel H1N1 influenza

Bias, Harald; Quarcoo, David; Meier-Wronski, Claus; Wicker, Sabine; Seybold, Joachim; Nienhaus, Albert; Groneberg, David A; Roux, Andres de

By April 24 the WHO issued a health advisory on the outbreak of "influenza like illness in the United States and Mexico". Despite measures by the Mexican government against the spread of the virus, the number of confirmed cases raised to 2,099 by May 7 2009 [10] . One month later, on June 11, 2009, the WHO officially declared a H1N1 pandemic [11] . This was the first pandemic since the 1968 Hong Kong flu pandemic. The WHO alert level was lifted to phase 6. The safety of influenza vaccine is in the focus of research since many years [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] . Due to a special debate on the safety of the pandemic influenza vaccines [18] , it was the objective of the present study to analyse the safety using a self reporting questionnaire approach in the acute event of a pandemic and a novel vaccine which was debated for its safety by the general population and healthcare worders (HCWs). We chose a population of healthcare workers (HCWs) and medical students after vaccination with Pandemrix ® since according to German federal recommendations HCWs had a top priority for vaccination [19] .