Week 7 : Child and Adolescent Immunisation

Question 1

Why is vaccination highly valued?

Answer 1

• Most effective public health intervention after clean water
• Immunisation currently prevents 2-3 million deaths every year

Question 2

What is R Number (reproduction number)?

Answer 2

The average number of secondary infections produced by a single infected person.

Question 3

List 4 ways of measuring how well a vaccine works.

Answer 3

• Vaccine efficacy
• Vaccine immunogenicity
• Vaccine effectiveness
• Programme effectiveness

Question 4

What is vaccine efficacy?

Answer 4

The proportion of recipients of the vaccine who are protected against a disease as a result of receiving the vaccine, expressed as a percentage.

Question 5

What is the gold standard of measuring vaccine efficacy?

Answer 5

A randomised double blind controlled trial in the target population as part of a phase III trial, where the assessor and recipients should not know which arm the participants are in.

Question 6

How is the outcome of vaccine efficacy measured?

Answer 6

• Laboratory confirmed disease
• Clinically diagnosed disease
• Severity

Question 7

What is vaccine effectiveness?

Answer 7

An estimation of how well a vaccine protects in the real world.

Question 8

Why may the results of vaccine effectiveness be inferior to those of vaccine efficacy?

Answer 8

• Different populations
• Storage/handling
• Interference from other organisms
• People not getting the vaccine at all, or not completing the course
• People not getting the vaccine at the right time