National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases, The Children's Hospital at Westmead and University of Sydney, Westmead, NSW.
This, the third annual immunisation coverage report, documents trends during 2009 for a range of standard measures derived from Australian Childhood Immunisation Register data, including overall coverage at standard age milestones and for individual vaccines included on the National Immunisation Program (NIP). Coverage by Indigenous status and mapping by smaller geographic areas as well as trends in timeliness is also summarised according to standard templates. With respect to overall coverage, the Immunise Australia Program targets have been reached for children at 12 and 24 months of age but not for children at 5 years of age. Coverage at 24 months of age exceeds that at 12 months of age, but as receipt of varicella vaccine at 18 months is excluded from calculations of 'fully immunised' this probably represents delayed immunisation, with some contribution from immunisation incentives. Similarly, the decrease in coverage estimates for immunisations due at 4 years of age from March 2008 is primarily due to changing the assessment age from 6 years to 5 years of age from December 2007. With respect to individual vaccines, a number of those available on the NIP are not currently assessed for 'fully immunised' status or for eligibility for incentive payments. These include pneumococcal conjugate and meningococcal C conjugate vaccines, for which coverage is comparable with vaccines that are assessed for 'fully immunised' status, and rotavirus and varicella vaccines for which coverage is lower. Coverage is also suboptimal for vaccines recommended for Indigenous children only (i.e. hepatitis A and pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine) as previously reported for other vaccines for both children and adults. Delayed receipt of vaccines is an important issue for vaccines recommended for Indigenous children and has not improved among non-Indigenous children despite improvements in coverage at the 24-month milestone. Although Indigenous children in Australia have coverage levels that are similar to non-Indigenous children at 24 months of age, the disparity in delayed vaccination between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children remains a challenge.
[Measles takes root in Sweden again. Reduced vaccination will result in epidemics, about 25 000 cases are expected to occur annually within a 15-year period]
Data on the morbidity in vaccine-preventable infections over the last 10 years in Russia, the analysis of immunization coverage and the level of post-vacination immunity are presented. The conclusions on the epidemic situation with each analyzed infection and decisions on the prospects for their decrease or eradication by the year 2010 are made.
To assess coverage rates of standard childhood vaccinations in Greenland, a geographically isolated and sparsely populated area, and to determine risk factors for low coverage, we performed a register-based cohort study among 596 children from 1993 to 1998 in Sisimiut, Greenland. For vaccines given before the age of 2 years (pertussis 1-3, DT-IPV 1-3, and MMR 1) coverage rates in general were impressively high being on or above levels of Western countries. A risk factor for low coverage was migration. The Greenlandic vaccination model with free vaccinations administered by health workers who systematically call in children at scheduled times seems highly efficient and could be a model for other similar countries.
In 2014, Norway became aware of potential low vaccination coverage for the second dose of measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR2) in six of 19 counties. This was detected by comparing the national coverage (NC) for 16-year-olds extracted from the national immunisation registry SYSVAK with the annual status update for elimination of measles and rubella (ASU) reported to the World Health Organization (WHO). The existing method for calculating NC in 2014 did not show MMR2 coverage. ASU reporting on MMR2 was significantly lower then the NC and below the WHO-recommended 95% coverage. SYSVAK is based on the Norwegian personal identification numbers, which allows monitoring of vaccinations at aggregateded as well as individual level. It is an important tool for active surveillance of the performance of the Norwegian Childhood Immunisation Programme (NCIP). The method for calculating NC was improved in 2015 to reflect MMR2 coverage for 16-year-olds. As a result, Norway has improved its real-time surveillance and monitoring of the actual MMR2 coverage also through SYSVAK (the annual publication of NC). Vaccinators receive feedback for follow-up if 15-year-olds are missing MMR2. In 2017, only three counties had an MMR2 coverage below 90%.
Notes
Cites: Euro Surveill. 2012 Apr 19;17(16):null22551462
Certain specific features of the present epidemic situation with hepatitis B (HB) in Russia were established: significant growth of HB morbidity, starting from 1995; the prevalence of persons aged 15-29 years among HB patients, which was linked with the sharp activation of the sexual route of the transmission of HB virus in recent years; an essential increase in the number of patients having contacted this virus in the process of the intravenous use of drugs. The results of the use of vaccine "Engerix B" among persons belonging to different risk groups were considered (a decrease in HB morbidity among them by 8-19 times was noted), the study demonstrated high immunogenicity anti-HBs antibodies on protective titers were determined in 92.3-95.7% of the vaccinees) and low reactogenicity of the vaccine, as well as stable postvaccinal immunity (5 years after the course of vaccination was completed anti-HBs antibodies were retained in 70.6-74% of the vaccinees). The study showed that only the vaccination of adolescents in combination, in the presence of opportunity, with the immunization of newborn infants and young children in the first year of their life made it possible to produce an essential effect on the activity of the epidemic process. Already in 2 years such organization of work on the prophylaxis of HB in one of the cities of the Sverdlovsk region led to a decrease in HB morbidity by 2.9 times, and among adolescents 9 times.
The tuberculosis morbidity rate in BGC-unvaccinated infants is 18 times greater than that in BCG-vaccinated infants and 6 times higher than the rate of complications due to BCG vaccination. If a scar due to BCG vaccination is absent or 1-2 mm, the tuberculosis morbidity in children of 3 years of life is 7 times higher than when a 3-mm or more scar has formed after vaccination. The technological failures are main causes of complications due to BCG vaccination. The type of a vaccine (BCG-1 or BCG-M) does not play a substantial role in the development of complications.
