Letter

Seasonal vaccine and H1N1

Authors’ reply

BMJ 2009; 339 doi: 10.1136/bmj.b4978 (Published 24 November 2009)
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4978

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  1. Lourdes Garcia-Garcia, research professor1,
  2. Jose Luis Valdespino-Gómez, epidemiologist2
  1. 1Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, Cuernavaca, Mor, Mexico
  2. 2Laboratorios de Biológicos y Reactivos de México (BIRMEX), Distrito Federal, Mexico
  1. jvaldespinog{at}birmex.gob.mx

    Skowronski and colleagues question the effectiveness of seasonal vaccine against pandemic A/H1N1 flu observed in our study.1 The confidence intervals are wide and similar to those described when seasonal flu vaccine strains are not antigenically well matched to circulating endemic strains (27% to 65%).2 Evidence on the effectiveness of seasonal vaccines against pandemic strains indicates some degree of protection against antigenically differing flu strains.3 4 5 Therefore the effectiveness we observed in our study …

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