title: Assessment of varicella vaccine effectiveness in Germany: a time-series approach.
abstract: A multivariate time-series regression model was developed in order to describe the 2005-2008 age-specific time-course of varicella sentinel surveillance data following the introduction of a varicella childhood vaccination programme in Germany. This ecological approach allows the assessment of vaccine effectiveness under field conditions by relating vaccine coverage in cohorts of 24-month-old children to the mean number of cases per reporting unit in the sentinel network. For the 1-2 years age group, which is directly affected by the vaccination programme, a one-dose vaccine effectiveness of 83·2% (95% CI 80·2-85·7) was estimated which corresponds to previous approaches assessing varicella vaccine effectiveness in the field in the USA.
authors.affiliation: Department for Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany. hoehlem@rki.de
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Höhle
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Siedler
authors.forename: H-M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Bader
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ludwig
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Heininger
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Von Kries
mesh_terms: D002644:Chickenpox / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D019433:Chickenpox Vaccine / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000276:immunology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D058005:General Practitioners; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D032521:Immunity, Herd; D007115:Immunization Schedule; D007223:Infant; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D018571:Sentinel Surveillance
chemical_list: D019433:Chickenpox Vaccine