NIC23.

The 23rd National Immunization Conference for Health Care Workers was held on December 7th, 2012 at the Manchester Conference Centre. There were over 220 delegates for this event sponsored by educational grants from Crucell, Glaxo Smith Kline, Pfizer Vaccines and Sanofi Pasteur. A number of speakers took the opportunity kindly afforded by Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics to write up their conference presentation as a paper for this special supplement.

Pneumococcal vaccination of older adults: conjugate or polysaccharide?

Invasive pneumococcal disease continues to be important problem for older adults. Pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPV23) has a clinical effectiveness of 43-81%, and following primary vaccination and revaccination, antibody responses last 5-10 y. Hyporesponsiveness to a second dose of vaccine has not been shown to be a significant problem. The use of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (initially PCV7; more recently PCV13) has led to a dramatic fall in the incidence of conjugate vaccine-type invasive pneumococcal disease in children. Because PCVs are immunogenic in older adults, the question has arisen as to whether to also use PCVs in this age group. However, PCV vaccination of children has also reduced the incidence of conjugate vaccine-serotype disease in older adults, and so wherever PCVs are used in children, there is no epidemiological reason to vaccinate older adults with PCV. The cost-effectiveness of PPV for older adults has changed wherever PCVs have been used for children, and this needs to be periodically re-evaluated.

Updates from the 18th National Immunization Conference for Health Care Workers: Manchester Conference Centre, December 2007.

The annual National Immunization Conference (NIC) for Health Care Workers (HCW) was first held in 1989 with the aim of providing an update on current vaccine issues and new developments for any health worker involved with immunization. The conference has grown each year and continues to be of particular interest to Clinical Medical Officers, General Practitioners, Health Visitors, Practice Nurses, Occupational Health Practitioners, Paediatricians, Microbiologists, School Nurses and District Immunization Coordinators. Invited speakers are nationally and internationally renowned experts in their fields and there are usually around 150 delegates, mainly from the UK. The conference is organized by the University of Manchester Medical School and administration is carried out by the Stockport Foundation Trust Post-graduate Medical Department. Although the conference scientific program is largely concentrated on the use of vaccines as prophylactic agents, presentations around therapeutic immunization (exclusively in cancer treatment) have also been made recognizing that this is an area of growing interest and potential. The conference format combines presentations with extended periods of open discussion. The conclusions reached over the course of the conference are summarized here while conference video material for the past three conferences is freely available online as a learning resource (www.medicine.manchester.ac.uk).