Ineffectiveness of the 2014-2015 H3N2 influenza vaccine

Abstract

// Michal Mandelboim 1 , Aharona Glatman-Freedman 2,3 , Yaron Drori 1 , Hilda Sherbany 1 , Rakefet Pando 1 , Hanna Sefty 2 , Hila Zadka 2 , Tamar Shohat 2,4 , Nathan Keller 5,6 and Ella Mendelson 1,4 1 Central Virology Laboratory, Ministry of Health, Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Ramat-Gan, Israel 2 The Israel Center for Disease Control, Israel Ministry of Health, Tel-Hashomer, Israel 3 Departments of Pediatrics and Family and Community Medicine, Valhalla, New York, USA 4 Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel 5 Department of Clinical Microbiology, Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, Israel 6 Ariel University Centre, Ariel, Israel Correspondence to: Michal Mandelboim, email: // Keywords : influenza, vaccine, Immunology and Microbiology Section, Immune response, Immunity Received : September 17, 2015 Accepted : November 27, 2015 Published : December 23, 2015 Abstract The seasonal influenza vaccine is currently the most effective preventive modality against influenza infection. Nasopharyngeal samples of vaccinated and non-vaccinated patients presenting with Influenza-like-illness (ILI) were collected from over 20 outpatient clinics located in different geographic parts of Israel and were tested for the presence of influenza viruses (influenza A and influenza B). Here we show, that in the 2014-2015 season, the vaccine that included the A/Texas/50/2012 H3N2 virus was ineffective. Significant numbers of individuals vaccinated with the 2014-2015 vaccine, of all ages, were infected with influenza A (H3N2), manifesting similar symptoms as the non-vaccinated group. We further demonstrate that the Israeli circulating influenza A(H3N2) virus was different than that included in the 2014-2015 northern hemisphere vaccine, and that antibodies elicited by this vaccine were significantly less efficient in neutralizing influenza A(H3N2) infection.