The European Medicines Agency (EMA) communicated to the relevant vaccine producers, on Wednesday 5 April, the European Union’s recommendations on the strains to be included in the seasonal influenza vaccine composition for the 2023-2024 flu season.
In order to maintain the efficacy of these vaccines, the EMA’S ad-hoc Influenza Working Group of the Biologics Working Party, publishes annual EU recommendations for the composition of seasonal influenza vaccines.
This working group brings together experts from Member States on seasonal influenza. Their work is based on World Health Organization (WHO) information on international influenza surveillance. This year, these WHO observations were presented by the representative of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza at the Francis Crick Institute in Great Britain.
The EMA states that these EU recommendations were endorsed by its Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) at its meeting on 27-30 March.
The Agency invites marketing authorisation holders to submit their applications for changes in the composition of authorised influenza vaccines under the centralised procedure before 12 June.
Link to recommendations: https://aeur.eu/f/68n (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)