What do we know about influenza vaccine uptake in Europe?

Abstract

In Europe, influenza vaccination of the elderly and other high-risk populations is seen as an important practice, it is both life- and costsaving. All European countries have influenza vaccination recommendations for high-risk groups. Despite these recommendations there is considerable variation in influenza vaccine uptake rates between European countries. This observation motivated ESWI to initiate a study. The study was performed by the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL) in cooperation with the European Influenza Surveillance Scheme (EISS). The first part of the study was an inventory of the availability of uptake figures among European countries, while the second part studied the feasibility of a population survey to determine uptake rates