From the Journals

Too few Michigan children with SCD receive pneumococcal, meningococcal vaccines

Publish date: May 4, 2018
By
Tara Haelle

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Following special vaccine recs for children with SCD essential

This study is particularly valuable because of the “depth, breadth and completeness” of data from across an entire state, a control group that is socioeconomically matched, and a study that was done during a time when new, life-saving vaccines were licensed and recommended. The many changes in the recommendations because of new vaccines and new understanding of the best use of these vaccines make for a complex schedule, but we health care providers need to keep current and to educate parents so their children are protected against infectious diseases. For parents of children with sickle cell disease, the schedule is more complex and the need is greater because of their extreme vulnerability. Wagner et al. suggest that “a proactive electronic prompt to providers [and parents] for vaccines needed for children with special conditions [as exists for the general immunization schedule] is needed – and seems doable.”

Sarah S. Long, MD, is a professor of pediatrics at Drexel University, Philadelphia. She is an associate editor of the Journal of Pediatrics and the Red Book Report of the Committee on Infectious Diseases of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She reported no disclosures. This is a summary of her editorial accompanying the article by Wagner et al. (J. Pediatr. 2018;196:3).


 

FROM THE JOURNAL OF PEDIATRICS

Substantial percentages of children with sickle cell disease are not receiving certain recommended vaccines on time or at all, found a study examining receipt of pneumococcal and meningococcal vaccines among children born in Michigan.

Although these children were more likely to be up-to-date on their pneumococcal vaccines than others their age without sickle cell disease (SCD), nearly one-third had not received all their pneumococcal vaccines by 36 months old. These children are at higher risk of meningococcal and invasive pneumococcal disease because they lack normal spleen function.

RBCs in a blood specimen of a 6-year-old boy with sickle cell disease CDC/Janice Haney Carr
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) child vaccination schedule includes complex recommendations for these two vaccines in children with certain high-risk conditions, including SCD, noted Abram L. Wagner, PhD, MPH, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and his associates.

ACIP has recommended since February 2010 that all children receive the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13), which replaced the 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) that had been recommended since October 2000.

But ACIP also recommends that children with SCD receive two doses of the 23-valent polysaccharide vaccine (PPV23), starting at 2 years old. These children also should receive a PCV13 dose before age 18 years, even if they received the full PCV7 vaccine series.

“By directly including SCD status in a child’s immunization record, an immunization information system could use a specialized algorithm to indicate to healthcare providers which vaccines should be given to a patient with SCD, which may differ from a typical patient,” Dr. Wagner and his colleagues wrote in The Journal of Pediatrics.

“Educational campaigns targeted to parents of these children and their providers could also help advance the importance of vaccination, particularly as more vaccines enter the market, many of which may be highly recommended for children with SCD,” they said.

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