Pages 727-728 in N. Murphy and A. Parkinson, eds. Circumpolar Health 2012: Circumpolar Health Comes Full Circle. Proceedings of the 15th International Congress on Circumpolar Health, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA, August 5-10, 2012. International Journal of Circumpolar Health 2013;72 (Suppl 1):727-728
Vaccine Evaluation Center, BC Children's Hospital, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Canadian Center for Vaccinology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, Vancouver
BC, Canada
Aboriginal Health Research Network, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, Health Canada, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Source
Pages 727-728 in N. Murphy and A. Parkinson, eds. Circumpolar Health 2012: Circumpolar Health Comes Full Circle. Proceedings of the 15th International Congress on Circumpolar Health, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA, August 5-10, 2012. International Journal of Circumpolar Health 2013;72 (Suppl 1):727-728
Despite the use in Canada of whole cell vaccines since the 1940s and acellular vaccines since the mid-1990s, pertussis remains a disease of considerable importance. In recent years, rates of pertussis have reached epidemic proportions in some North American jurisdictions (1), involving significant morbidity and public health expenditures. Canadian Aboriginal populations experience rates of pertussis more than double that of the general population. Socio-economic, environmental and biologic factors may contribute to this increased risk; however, whether vaccine responses are altered in Aboriginal infants is undetermined because vaccine studies rarely
focus on this population. We report one of the first Canadian studies to assess the vaccine responses of Aboriginal infants.