How will public health authorities investigate cases of GBS?
Ensuring the safety of vaccines is a high priority for CDC. CDC and its partners have an aggressive plan to actively monitor the 2009 H1N1 vaccine to ensure its safety. Several systems are in place to monitor vaccine safety. One of these systems is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). CDC and FDA co-manage VAERS, which serves as an early warning system to collect voluntary reports about possible side effects that people experience following vaccinations. CDC and FDA scientists review all VAERS reports and store the information in a computerized database that is monitored to detect new, unusual, or rare health events that could be possible side effects of vaccines. In addition to the normal vaccine safety monitoring systems, CDC is proactively putting additional monitoring systems in place to ensure safety after licensing. Some of these systems include: actively observing persons in defined geographic areas, collaborating with professional organizations for reports of any
