Assessment of effectiveness of Vaxigrip

In order to assess the effectiveness of Vaxigrip in 1996-1997, we chose 135 6 people in the Chinese Army, who had not recently had influenza and who we re divided into an injection group and a control group. The injection group consisted of 80 children aged 3-6 years, 363 adults aged 18-59 years and 2 35 people over 60 years of age. The control group consisted of 88 children aged 3-6, 372 adults aged 18-59 and 218 people over 60. They were observed from the 21st day to the 6th month after Vaxigrip administration. Each pers on was requested to report having a body temperature over 38.5 degrees C, h eadache, myalgia or arthalgia, cough, pharyngodynia or nasal obstruction. F ever due to other causes was not included in the influenza symptoms. We cou nted the symptoms of influenza and common cold only once during the observa tion period. Our final finding was that the incidence rates of the influenz a and common cold symptoms were reduced by 84.8% in children, 74.0% in adul ts and 68.6% in elderly people. In comparison with the control group, the incidence rate of influenza-like symptoms was reduced by 71.1% in the injection group, and the incidence rat e of common cold symptoms in the injection group was lower than that in the control group. There was no large difference by age. The incidence rate of symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection in the injection group was 4 7.5% lower than that in the control group. Our findings are basically the s ame as those in other countries. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd . All rights reserved.