What factors drive choices between types and brands of influenza vaccines in general practice in Europe?

DRIVE walks you through some of them on its latest article published in PLOS ONE journal.

Influenza vaccine effectiveness (IVE) assessment is increasingly stratified by vaccine type or brand, such as done by the European network of DRIVE. In 2019/2020, eleven influenza vaccines were licensed in Europe. If more than one vaccine type is recommended or if more than one vaccine brand is available for a specific risk group, it is not clear which factors affect the choice of a specific vaccine (type or brand) by a health practitioner for individual patients. This is important for IVE assessment.

To understand how influenza vaccine is offered to recommended risk groups and, if GPs have a choice between 2 or more vaccines, what factors influence their vaccine choice for patients, DRIVE conducted a survey tailored to the 2019/20 local vaccine recommendations among 360 GPs in four European countries: Austria, Italy, Spain, UK.

Overall, the use of any specific vaccine type in the <65y risk group is determined by the availability of specific vaccine type(s) at the clinic level at a given point in time. In addition, individual characteristics of the vaccinees, notably older age and the presence of multiple comorbidities, play an important role in GPs’ choice of vaccine type.

Read the full article here.