Immune correlates of protection against influenza: challenges for licensure of seasonal and pandemic influenza vaccines, Miami, FL, USA, March 1-3, 2010.

The emergence of a novel swine-origin pandemic influenza virus in 2009, together with the continuing circulation of highly pathogenic avian H5N1 viruses and the urgent global need to produce effective vaccines against such public health threats, has prompted a renewed interest in improving our understanding of the immune correlates of protection against influenza. As new influenza vaccine technologies, including non-HA based approaches and novel production platforms are developed and undergo clinical evaluation, it has become clear that existing immune correlates such as serum hemagglutination-inhibition antibodies may be unsuitable to estimate vaccine immunogenicity and protective efficacy of such vaccines. This International Society for Influenza and other Respiratory Virus Diseases (ISIRV) sponsored international meeting held in Miami, Florida USA on March 1-3, 2010, brought together scientists from industry, academia, and government agencies that develop and evaluate seasonal and pandemic influenza vaccines and scientists from regulatory authorities that approve them, to identify approaches to develop expanded immune correlates of protection to aid in vaccine licensure.