Administration time between seasonal live-attenuated influenza vaccine and trivalent influenza vaccine during the "Stop Flu at School" Campaign--Hawaii, 2009.

OBJECTIVES: We determined whether the administration time differed between seasonal intranasal live-attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) and seasonal injectable trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (TIV) during Hawaii's 2009 school-located influenza vaccination clinics. This information is useful for public health response and allows further investigation into possible differences between the two vaccines. METHODS: We conducted a prospective cohort study in 15 public schools to determine mean times to administer LAIV and TIV to students. We performed group analyses to control for various clinic characteristics and conducted a stratified, weighted analysis. RESULTS: A total of 4,701 students were enrolled in the study, and administration time was obtained for 3,869 (82%) students (1,492 [39%] LAIV and 2,377 [61%] TIV). The mean administration time for LAIV was 62 seconds and for TIV was 90 seconds, a difference of 28 seconds (p<0.01). This finding remained significant in the stratified analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Although results indicated that both LAIV and TIV can be administered rapidly among school-aged populations, LAIV was faster to administer. This finding, in addition to the greater immunogenicity of LAIV compared with TIV among children, may be an important consideration for public health administrators in planning school-located mass vaccination clinics and encouraging patient acceptance of this vaccine.

Sequence analysis of the complete genome of an iridovirus isolated from the tiger frog.

We have isolated a tiger frog virus (TFV) from diseased tiger frogs, Rana tigrina rugulosa. The genome was a linear double-stranded DNA of 105,057 basepairs in length with a base composition of 55.01% G+C. About 105 open reading frames were identified with coding capacities for polypeptides ranging from 40 to 1294 amino acids. Computer-assisted analyses of the deduced amino acid sequences revealed that 39 of 105 putative gene products showed significant homology to functionally characterized proteins of other species in the GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ databases. These proteins included enzymes and structural proteins involved in virus replication, transcription, modification, and virus--host interaction. The deduced amino acid sequences of TFV gene products showed more than 90% identity to FV3, but a low degree of similarity among TFV, ISKNV, and LCDV-1. The results from this study indicated that TFV may belong to the genus Ranavirus of the family Iridoviridae.