Vaccines

Introduction

The EUGMS vaccine WG was created in 2005 with the goal of proposing  “Adult vaccination guidelines”. The working group was very active and produced in 2009 several papers were published:

• MICHEL JP, CHIDIAC C, GRUBECK-LOEBENSTEIN B, ET AL. Advocating vaccination of adults aged 60 years and older in Western Europe: statement by the Joint vaccine Working Group of the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society and the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics-European Region. Rejuvenation Res 2009;12(2): 127-35
• GUSMANO MK, MICHEL JP.  Life course vaccination and healthy aging. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2009 Jun;21(3):258-63.
• MICHEL JP, CHIDIAC C, GRUBECK-LOEBENSTEIN B, JOHNSON RW, LAMBERT PH, MAGGI S,
• MOULIAS R, NICHOLSON K, WERNER H. Coalition of advocates to vaccinate of Western European citizens aged 60 years and older. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2009 Jun;21(3):254-7.
• BAEYENS JP, LANG PO, MICHEL JP. Willingness to vaccinate and to be vaccinated in adults.  Aging Clin Exp Res. 2009;21(3):244-9.
• GRUBECK-LOEBENSTEIN B, DELLA BELLA S, IORIO AM, MICHEL JP, PAWELEC G, SOLANA R. Immunosenescence and vaccine failure in the elderly. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2009 Jun;21(3):201-9.
• MICHEL JP  Vaccinations: "not just for kids". Aging Clin Exp Res. 2009;21(3):199-200.

Then, an online course on adult vaccination was launched on the EUGMS website 2011:

The EUGMS accreditation obtained for the first course was not renewed after two years due to the financial burden of the online maintenance. CDs were produced in 5 different languages. A few sets of CDs are still available on request.

Since 2006, the EUGMS vaccine working group has been organizing in each EUGMS congress an independent EUGMS session focused on different types of vaccines. Until 2014, the speakers were always members of the working group.

After the EUGMS Brussel congress Marc Paccalin published a paper untitled: Should adult pneumococcal vaccine guidelines be updated throughout Europe? European Geriatric Medicine, Volume 4, Issue 4, September 2013, Pages 266-268

After these activities, the appearance of new vaccines such as Herpes Zoster and Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine challenged the group to exactly determine the efficacy of the new vaccines in old adults, the best vaccination timing, the choice of vaccine uptakes and the choice and delay of boosters.

Structure (in 2014, before the EUGMS Rotterdam Congress)

Since the start of the working group, le leader of the WG was the same: Prof Jean-Pierre MICHEL (Geneva University)

All the participants are geriatricians interested in infectious diseases and vaccines,

The group is not closed; rotation of the members has been frequent. Volunteers to contribute to the group are always welcome.

Goals

Primary (i.e. improve care in a given area of knowledge) and

Knowing the important burden of vaccine preventable diseases in old adults, The main gaol of the group was to promote an adult vaccination programme.

The 2009 EUGMS programme needs to be quickly revised (see below).

Secondary (i.e. develop links, offer advice, establish a research network,…)

Need to update the knowledge on new vaccines and try to harmonise the vaccination practice in all European countries.

Ongoing projects

Integration a few members of the EUGMS working group with a new European initiative by the ESCMID (European society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious diseases) to prepare new vaccination guidelines for adults. The EUGMS representatives are: Gaetan Gavazzi, Stefania Maggi and Jean-Pierre Michel. The first meeting of the group will be in September 2014.

One paper was recently submitted to European Geriatric Medicine:

Burden of Pneumococcal diseases in Nursing Home residents

J-P MICHEL, M CANTURKARAN, J FLAMAING, M PACCALIN, E TOPINKOVA

In the 2014 EUGMS congress the EUGMS vaccine working group set up a session devoted to the presentation before any publication of the “CAPITA Study”. The leader of the project Professor JM BONTEN will give a lecture on this topic. Then the EUGMS working group will discuss the changes of vaccination practice after this population-based study of the Pneumococcal conjugate 13 vaccine.

Achievements

Publications, documents, meetings

(see above)

Contact

Name and email 

The new leader of the group after the EUGMS Rotterdam congress will be Professor Gaetan GAVAZZI from Grenoble University GGavazzi(at)chu-grenoble.fr