One of the vaccines currently under development is a chimeric yellow fever/West Nile virus vaccine [3]. Currently, there is no research available on the

attitudes of health care personal towards the best approach to introducing a WNV vaccine, such as this proposed yellow fever–WNv vaccine. When asked about other vaccines, health care practitioners’ top considerations when introducing or recommending a new vaccine to public include perceived disease risk, and vaccine risk and benefit. Key factors within disease risk that affect health care workers attitudes are a patient’s perceived susceptibility to the disease targeted by the vaccine, the disease’s morbidity and mortality, and the healthcare worker’s knowledge and experience with the disease [4], [5], [6], [7] and [8]. The most commonly reported determinants of vaccine uptake include the general safety of the vaccine, the vaccine’s Selleck BMS354825 adverse effects, and the vaccine’s efficacy [4], [6], [7], [8] and [9]. Health care workers involved in immunization take their cues from the provincial Ministry of Health, who base their programs on recommendations of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, regarding the vaccine buy JQ1 strategy, plans for implementation and any policy issues [4], [6] and [7]. This study examines the attitudes of health care personnel in Saskatchewan towards WNv and

the proposed chimeric yellow fever/WNv vaccine. Structured telephone and in-person interviews were held

with key informants from all health regions in the province. The resulting information may be used to assess the acceptability of the vaccine and potentially to inform policies and protocols when implementing the new vaccine. Between July 14, 2009 and August 30 2009, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of medical health officers, family and general physicians, public health nurses, and other public health practitioners with experience in immunization in Saskatchewan. Participants were recruited from all of the health regions and health authorities PD184352 (CI-1040) in Saskatchewan. The study design and survey to be used underwent internal University ethics approval. In addition, operational ethics and approval to conduct the study was sought from the two largest Regional Health Authorities in Saskatchewan as required (Saskatoon and Regina Qu’appelle). To be eligible, the participants had to be currently employed in a position to influence or recommend vaccine uptake to the public. All of the medical health officers in Saskatchewan were contacted and invited to be interviewed. From each health region, four family or general physicians from each major center with a population greater than 2500 were identified using the phonebook and the directory of the college of physicians and surgeons.