April 2016
Vaccine Update for Healthcare Providers
This newsletter is meant to keep you up to date on issues related to vaccines quickly and easily. We welcome your comments and questions at vacinfo@email.chop.edu. |
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Announcements: Materials updates, webinar archive, and new European Union project release
Materials updates
Please note the following minor updates to VEC materials:
- Zika virus: What you should know — The online sheet has been updated to reflect the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recent confirmation of a link between infection of pregnant women with Zika virus and microcephaly in their infants.
- Vaccines and Autism: What you should know —The English version Q&A was recently reprinted and we updated the date on the file to Spring 2016 (previously Spring 2012). Please be aware that NO content has changed, and, therefore, neither did the volume number (Volume 2). The Spanish version still shows 2012 because no content changes have been made; the only difference is the date.
While we sometimes get requests to update the dates on our materials, please be aware that due to limited resources, we are only able to make updates if the information is out of date or, as in the autism case above, we need to print new quantities. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Webinar archive
The March Current Issues in Vaccines webinar archive is available for online viewing. Continuing education credits are also available.
Dr. Offit discussed the following topics:
- Men ACWY: Expanding the recommendation
- HPV9: Is it time for a two-dose schedule?
- Influenza: Current influenza activity and new recommendation for egg-allergic patients
Download a copy of the Q&A from the event (PDF).
New European Union project release
The Vaccine Education Center is proud to announce the availability of several popular Q&A sheets and booklets in languages relevant in European countries. Current translations include files for the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ukraine (both Ukrainian and Russian language). Additional files and languages will be made available as translations are completed. Access these materials at vaccine.chop.edu/EU. |
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News and Views: HPV and adolescent vaccinations
Charlotte A. Moser, Assistant Director, and Paul A. Offit, Director, Vaccine Education Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
How is your practice doing with adolescent vaccination coverage?
Chances are your team is dealing with at least one question or policy related to adolescent vaccinations:
- HPV vaccine completion rates?
- Meningococcus B vaccination — to promote universally or just to high-risk patients?
- HPV-9 for those who already had HPV-4 or HPV-2?
- Meningococcus B vaccine — which one to stock?
- Second dose meningococcus ACWY rates?
Two recently released action briefs may provide you with data and ideas for action in your own practices » |
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In the Journals: Waning immunity after pertussis vaccination: where from here?
Paul A. Offit, MD, Director, Vaccine Education Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
The pertussis vaccine, which was introduced in combination with diphtheria and tetanus vaccines in the 1940s, consisted of whole pertussis bacteria inactivated with formaldehyde. Prior to the vaccine, every year about 8,000 children died from pertussis in the United States.
Because the original pertussis vaccine was made using the whole bacteria, it was called the whole-cell pertussis vaccine (wP). This vaccine contained about 3,000 structural and non-structural proteins from the bacteria as well as inactivated pertussis toxins (i.e., toxoids, including endotoxin). It was the only time we have ever routinely given a whole bacterial vaccine routinely to children in the United States. The wP vaccine dramatically reduced the incidence of pertussis disease and death. Unfortunately, the wP vaccine had a difficult safety profile, complicated by occasional high fevers, seizures with or without fever, high-pitched, inconsolable crying, and hypotonic-hyporesponsive syndrome. Although the vaccine never caused permanent harm (such as epilepsy or developmental delays), many in the media and the public believed that it did.
Because of these real and imagined issues of safety, in the late 1990s, the wP vaccine was phased out in favor of a vaccine containing only two to five inactivated pertussis proteins (i.e., the acellular pertussis vaccine [aP]). The result was a much better safety profile. But, as we’re learning over the past few years, the switch has also resulted in a dramatic decrease in vaccine efficacy.
Read more » |
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Technically Speaking: CDC experts answer 1,000+ vaccine-related questions at immunize.org
Deborah L. Wexler, MD, Executive Director, Immunization Action Coalition
Ask the Experts, a long-standing and ever-popular feature of the Immunization Action Coalition’s (IAC) website for healthcare professionals, has been one of the most highly visited destinations on immunize.org since IAC’s website was launched in 1994. For more than 20 years, vaccine experts from CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases have been working closely with IAC to answer questions about the use of vaccines that come up every day in medical practices across the United States.
Over the years, IAC has published these Q&As in Needle Tips and in Vaccinate Adults. The Q&As also appear in every issue of IAC Express.
Find out more about this great resource » |
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From the Media: Tribeca Film Festival and Robert De Niro: Revisiting vaccines and autism
Unfortunately, vaccines and autism have been in the news again recently following the removal of Andrew Wakefield’s film, Vaxxed, from the Tribeca Film Festival and Robert De Niro’s subsequent comments about his belief that autism and vaccines are related. The allegations are not based on any new information and the existing science strongly refutes this association.
We added a page to our website that includes the resources we have available related to these allegations. Send parents with concerns to vaccine.chop.edu; a news box on the home page provides a link to the list of resources.
Also, Dr. Offit reviewed Vaxxed in The Hollywood Reporter.
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On the Calendar
Check the calendar for upcoming meetings and webinars or see what archived webinars might be of interest. |
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Resources: Vaccine Information Statements (VIS) updates, shingles awareness, and adolescent study opportunity
VIS updates
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released updated versions of the Vaccine Information Statements (VIS) for HPV-9 and meningococcal (ACWY) vaccines. Although the content changed minimally, healthcare providers should always use the most recent versions:
Shingles awareness
The National Foundation of Infectious Diseases (NFID) recently released a new shingles awareness campaign. The intended audience is people 60 years and older and caregivers of those individuals. The campaign includes the following tools:
Adolescent study opportunity
The Unity Consortium is still seeking pediatric practices to participate in their Three Cs study, Pursuit of the Three Cs: Confident, Concise and Consistent Health Care Provider Recommendations for Adolescent Vaccines.
To qualify, practices must:
- Be a single specialty pediatrics practice with moderate to high volume of adolescent visits.
- Have at least five providers (may include NPs and/or PAs).
- Have agreement to participate from at least 90 percent of the providers in the practice.
- Be in a setting in which participating providers work at least 60 percent FTE and spend at least 70 percent of their time in direct patient care. They also must have been practicing between two and 25 years.
- Utilize electronic health records that allow for generating blinded vaccination data and rates by provider.
Additionally, practices cannot be based in a hospital or academic center or reside in Illinois, North Carolina, Rhode Island or Utah (because of recent changes to adolescent vaccination mandates).
If you are interested, please contact Denise Lewis from Unity Consortium at denise@inkleinconsulting.com. |
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