We aimed to determine how municipal subsidies for seasonal influenza vaccines for the elderly affected vaccination coverage and health outcomes and how responses to vaccine prices changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. This ecological study includes 1245 municipalities in Japan between 2019 and 2020. Fixed-effects regression analysis was performed to evaluate the effect of influenza vaccine cost subsidy for people aged 65 years or older on vaccination coverage, all-cause mortality, and influenza-related mortality.

Read more in Public Health. 

Seasonal influenza may lead to severe complications, including respiratory and cardiovascular disease, that result in considerable healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) and mortality, particularly in older individuals. This real-world study assessed the burden of influenza and its potential complications in older Japanese adults.

Read more in Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses. 

Many industrialized countries have implemented routine immunization policies for older adults, but similar strategies have not been widely implemented in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In March 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) convened a meeting to identify policies and activities to promote access to vaccination of older adults, specifically in LMICs. Participants included academic and industry researchers, funders, civil society organizations, implementers of global health interventions, and stakeholders from developing countries with adult immunization needs.

Read more in Vaccine.

Seasonal influenza vaccination for the elderly is highly recommended during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Japan, the amount of subsidy for influenza differs among municipalities. Thus, we investigated the amount of and variation in subsidy for influenza vaccination for the elderly in 2020.

Read more in Journal of Infection and Chemotherapy. 

Japan's adult respiratory vaccination programs generate substantial socioeconomic returns, strengthening public health, healthcare resilience, and workforce productivity. Increasing uptake across the population can generate significantly higher NBs. Realizing these benefits requires addressing vaccine uptake barriers and enhancing public investment.

Read more in Expert Review of Vaccines. 

Global demographic changes and health challenges are putting ever-greater pressure on healthcare systems and society more broadly. Adult immunisation programmes are a potentially powerful tool for policymakers to ease those pressures. This report provides evidence for adult immunisation programmes across ten countries and four vaccines showing that adult immunisation programs offset their costs multiple times through benefits to individuals, the healthcare system, and wider society.

Read more in Office of Health Economics.

This study highlights the significant burden of RSV in Asia, particularly among young children, and highlights substantial variation in seasonality and economic impact across the region. The findings emphasize the need for region-specific RSV data to inform targeted prevention strategies and healthcare resource allocation. High heterogeneity in cost estimates suggests variability in healthcare access and economic conditions, warranting further investigation. 

Read more in eClinicalMedicine.

Health technology assessments (HTAs) of vaccines typically focus on the direct health benefits to individuals and healthcare systems. COVID-19 highlighted the widespread societal impact of infectious diseases and the value of vaccines in averting adverse clinical consequences and in maintaining or resuming social and economic activities. Using COVID-19 as a case study, this research work aimed to set forth a conceptual framework capturing the broader value elements of vaccines and to identify appropriate methods to quantify value elements not routinely considered in HTAs.

Read more in Vaccines.

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have been highlighted as important risk factors for COVID-19 mortality. However, insufficient data exist on the wider context of infectious diseases in people with NCDs. We aimed to investigate the association between NCDs and the risk of death from any infection before the COVID-19 pandemic (up to Dec 31, 2019).

Read more in The Lancet: Infectious Diseases.

We performed a systematic literature review in PubMed and Embase (2016-2021) to investigate the drivers of and barriers to routine vaccination in adults aged 50 and older globally. A thematic assessment identified three categories across 61 publications: sociodemographic, health-related, and attitudinal.

Read more in Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics.

Neurotropic herpesviruses may be implicated in the development of dementia. Moreover, vaccines may have important off-target immunological effects. Here we aim to determine the effect of live-attenuated herpes zoster vaccination on the occurrence of dementia diagnoses.

Read more in Nature.

Influenza infection is associated with increased cardiovascular hospitalization and mortality. Our prior systematic review and meta-analysis hypothesized that influenza vaccination was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular events.

Read more in JAMA Network. 

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the Asia-Pacific region. Human papillomavirus (HPV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) are major cancer-causing infections. This analysis assessed the mortality impact and productivity losses due to HBV- and HPV-related cancers in ten Asia-Pacific countries.

Read more in the Journal of Medical Economics. 

Pneumococcal disease causes substantial morbidity and mortality, including among adults. Adult pneumococcal vaccines help to prevent these burdens, but they are underused. Accounting for the full benefits of adult pneumococcal vaccination may promote more rational resource allocation decisions with respect to adult pneumococcal vaccines.

Read more in PLOS One.

Numerous social and behavioral factors have been implicated in vaccination coverage. There is no single measure that describes a country's ability to improve or maintain its immunization coverage.

We estimated the “Vaccination Improvement Potential” (VIP) by taking the geometric mean of 13 different indicators on health financing, vaccine confidence, and socio-demographics for more than 200 countries across 30 years. 

Read more in Heliyon. 

There was no 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) adult antibody concentration threshold regulatory criterion for licensure - unlike the pediatric indication; consequently, for the adult indication, PCV13 serotype-specific opsonophagocytic activity (OPA) geometric mean titer (GMT) values were immunobridged to the 23-valent plain polysaccharide vaccine (PPV23) to infer efficacy against invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD). Subsequently, a double-blind, randomized, controlled PCV13 efficacy trial (CAPiTA) was performed in community-living, older adults to confirm efficacy against vaccine-serotype IPD (VT-IPD) and establish efficacy against vaccine-serotype pneumococcal community-acquired pneumonia (VT-CAP).

Read more in Expert Review of Vaccines.

Herpes zoster (HZ, Shingles) is a vaccine-preventable viral disease impacting patients’ quality of life owing to pain and rash. An estimated 15 million HZ cases occur annually in individuals aged ≥ 50 years worldwide. Recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV) is effective in protecting against HZ. This is the first study evaluating the potential incremental public health benefits in terms of HZ cases averted worldwide by vaccinating adults aged ≥ 50 years with RZV.

Read more in Infectious Diseases and Therapy.

Immunosenescence is a normal biologic process involving deterioration of protective immune responses. Consequently, older adults experience increased risk of infectious diseases, particularly pneumonia, and its leading bacterial cause, Streptococcus pneumoniae. Pneumococcal vaccine recommendations are often limited to adults with specific medical conditions despite similar disease risks among older adults due to immunosenescence.

Read more in Expert Review of Vaccines. 

Of the various life stages such as infancy, early childhood, childhood, puberty, adolescence, adulthood, and old age, immunization and vaccination policies in Japan have focused on infancy, early childhood, and childhood. These policies have contributed to better health and quality of life for the public. However, scientific evidence has been gathered from around the world that a life course approach to vaccination that takes all life stages into account can help maintain public health and generate socioeconomic benefits. Broader vaccination coverage can also help control the spread of communicable diseases and protect unvaccinated people.

Read more in Health and Global Policy Institute.

Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI) has released policy recommendations entitled, “Recommendations on the Development of Information Infrastructure and System Maintenance for Long-Term Safety Assessment of Immunizations and Vaccines.” Through these recommendations, we hope that the safety evaluation of immunizations and vaccines will act as a safety net in immunization and vaccine policy, that discussions will expand in within the industry, government, academia and civil society to systematically promote the establishment of a system for safety evaluation, and that specific measures will be put into practice so that immunization and vaccine policies can create a mutual circle of benefit between individuals and society.

Read more in Health and Global Policy Institute. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the time required to introduce a new vaccine to the market was shortened significantly due to reinforcements to the global vaccine R&D and production pipeline and the acceleration of regulatory approval processes. There has been progress in these areas in Japan, as well. Efforts to examine and establish necessary systems are advancing and include the Accelerated Parallel Plan presented in June 2020 as well as the Strategy for Strengthening Vaccine Development and Production Systems, which received Cabinet approval in June 2021. However, the effort to create a vaccine R&D and production pipeline in which all stakeholders cooperate under appropriate leadership has not yet succeeded, and as of the time of writing, a domestically-produced vaccine has not yet been approved.

Read more in Health and Global Policy Institute.

Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI) has released policy recommendations titled, “Reshaping Japan’s Immunization Policy for Life Course Coverage and Vaccine Equity: Challenges and Prospects for an Era of Prevention and Health Promotion”.

These recommendations revisit the fundamental principle of Japan’s immunization and vaccination programs, to prevent vaccine preventable diseases (VPD), and outline the long-term direction for future immunization and vaccine policy in Japan.

Read more in Health and Global Policy Institute. 

It is unknown that whether frailty is a risk factor of influenza and the hospitalization among older adults, although it has been shown that frailty was associated with poor recovery from the hospitalization among those. We examined the association of frailty with influenza and the hospitalization and the effect by sex among independent older adults.

Read more in BMC Geriatrics.