Why influenza and RSV disease are a priority for policy makers

Hanna Nohynek is a Finnish MD PhD, Chief Physician with special competences in international and travel health. She works in the Infectious Diseases Control and Vaccines Unit, Dept Health Security at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), which is a governmental public health research agency. She served as the secretary of the Finnish NITAG until 8/2023, still being a member, and is chairperson of the WHO SAGE, and former chairperson of the WHO SAGE working group on covid-19 vaccines. After coordinating several Phase II trials and major Phase III trial on 11PCV against childhood pneumonia in the Philippines until 2010, Nohynek joined THL, where her research responsibilities are in register-based vaccine impact studies, evidence-based policy/decision making, vaccine safety, acceptance, SARS-CoV-2, RSV, influenza, and pneumococcus. She co-leads IMI funded PROMISE consortium´s WP Preparation for future RSV product assessment (www.imi-promise.eu) and was co-leading the WP on communications of the IMI-funded DRIVE project (www.drive-eu.org). She authored >180 original articles; lectures, guides elective, graduate and PhD students. She belongs to Scientific Faculty of ADVAC (2000-), initiated EPIET vaccine module (1997-), and the Finnish Diploma Course Global Health (2000-). She initiated THL Finnish Vaccinators Manual and Finnish Travel Health Advisory. She has served expert national and international committees evaluating vaccines, and is advisor to many international organizations, incl European Medical Agency, International Vaccine Institute, Korea and icddr.b, Bangladesh.