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Article Posted: 07/27/2004 11:26:28 AM
Reinstatement of Certain Vaccination Recommended
Lincoln – Three major health groups have jointly recommended that health care providers reinstate the third dose of Prevnar, a vaccine that helps prevent serious pneumococcal disease like meningitis and blood infections. Production problems earlier this year caused shortages of the vaccine and prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to reduce the recommended four doses to two. According to the CDC, production problems at Wyeth Vaccines, the company that manufactures Prevnar, appear to be resolved and supplies are now adequate.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Academy of Family Practice recommend providers give three doses of Prevnar. Providers should defer the fourth dose of the vaccine for healthy children until production and supply data demonstrate that a four-dose schedule can be sustained. Providers should continue to administer the full four-dose series to children at increased risk of severe disease, which includes children with sickle cell anemia, chronic cardiac and pulmonary disease, diabetes and HIV. The third dose of Prevnar is usually given at six months; the fourth dose at 12-15 months.
"The vaccine supply has caught up enough to reinstate the third dose. Three doses will give children better immunity than just two," said Dr. Joann Schaefer, Deputy Chief Medical Officer of the Nebraska Health and Human Services System. "Vaccine producers are working with the CDC to get the supply back up to the numbers needed to fully vaccinate all children."
Children who missed the third dose of the vaccine should receive their catch-up vaccination at their next visit to a health care provider.
Invasive pneumococcal disease is responsible for about 200 deaths each year among children under 5 years old. It is the leading cause of bacterial meningitis in the U.S. Children under 2 years old are at highest risk. The Prevnar vaccine is normally recommended for young children on a four-dose schedule: one dose at two months, four months and six months, and one dose between 12 and 15 months. Before a vaccine was available, each year pneumococcal infection caused more than 700 cases of meningitis, 13,000 blood infections and about five million ear infections.
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