FLU GOLD

FLU GOLD is an unfunded pilot study set up as an extension to the RSV GOLD project. The FLU GOLD team aims to gain insight into risk factors for influenza-related mortality in children under five years of age.

Pediatric influenza-related mortality is highest in children younger than six months old. Maternal vaccination has emerged as an important means to protect young infants from respiratory diseases via passive immunization. However, current studies examining vaccine efficacy in preventing influenza-related mortality exclude children under six months of age. The results of the FLU GOLD study will be instrumental to understand the impact of maternal vaccination on infantile influenza-related mortality.

The FLU GOLD team is engaged in creating a global mortality registry. Health care providers and researchers from all over the world are encouraged to share retrospective and prospective cases of children younger than five years old who were diagnosed with and died from influenza infection. Cases of death that occured after 1995 are eligible for inclusion in the registry. These confidential and anonymous data will be used to investigate clinical and socio-economic characteristics of children dying from influenza infection and to analyze the worldwide age distribution of these children.

The FLU GOLD study has been finalized and data collection has been finished. You can find our published research paper here.

FLU GOLD has released seperate newsletters on project updates and recent developments in the past:

2020

May – Issue 5
FLU-GOLD-Newsletter-Issue-5

January – Issue 4
FLU-GOLD-Newsletter-Issue-4

2019

September – Issue 3
FLU-GOLD-Newsletter-Issue-3

May – Issue 2
FLU-GOLD-Newsletter-Issue-2

January – Issue 1
FLU-GOLD Newsletter-Issue-1

In case of questions and suggestions or if you are looking for more information, please do not hesitate to contact the FLU GOLD team via flugold@umcutrecht.nl.