Influenza vaccines in patients with IBD: ready for primetime?

摘要

Influenza viruses have long been a major global public health problem. In particular, sudden shifts in influenza strains can result in global pandemics, as recently experienced with 2009 Influenza A (H1N1). When the WHO declared an end to the pandemic in August 2010, >18000 deaths had been attributed to 2009 H1N1. This number was thankfully much lower than initially feared, but concern persists of a future recurrence of the 1918 'Spanish flu' pandemic that resulted in an estimated 50 million global deaths.