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Rotavirus vaccines helped reduce hospitalization-related illness
Anderson EJ. Pediatrics. 2011;127:e264-e270.
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Hospital-associated rotavirus declined more than 60% after rotavirus vaccination became routine practice compared with prior seasons, mirroring an even greater reduction in community-acquired cases of about 82%, according to researchers at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
Evan J. Anderson, MD, and colleagues assessed community- and hospital-acquired rotavirus, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) through antigen testing between 2003 and 2008.
They found that hospitalizations for community-acquired rotavirus declined from a median of 1.62 per 100 admissions in the 2003 to 2006 seasons to 0.28 per 100 in the 2007-2008 season.
The researchers said improvements in infection control measures, such as hand-hygiene compliance, did not seem to correlate with the reduction in rotavirus because the influenza and RSV rates remained stable.
“Although we noted continued improvement in our independently observed hand-hygiene compliance, a corresponding decrease in the [hospital-acquired] and [community-acquired] rotavirus transmission rate did not occur. A potential explanation is that the 10% absolute increase in hand-hygiene compliance at [Children’s Memorial Hospital] was insufficient to substantially impact [hospital-acquired] rates,” the researchers wrote. “Our data confirm the hypothesis that vaccination, by impacting [community-acquired] rotavirus hospital admissions, might decrease [hospital-acquired] rotavirus rates.”
Disclosure: Dr. Anderson reports serving on the speaker’s bureau for Merck, consulting for Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, and receiving research support from Merck, Meridian Bioscience Inc. and Clearview, and financial compensation for writing a review article for Medscape CME.
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