Pertussis

Efforts to raise flagging childhood vaccination rates increased in 2023 as new shots hit the market.

Maternal pertussis vaccination resulted in a 66% decrease in pertussis among infants through age 6 months and remained protective for up to 8 months, with no evidence it blunted response to further vaccination, an Australian study found.

There was a sustained decrease in pertussis cases among young infants in the years after maternal Tdap vaccination was introduced in the United States, according to the results of a CDC study published in JAMA Pediatrics.

The FDA announced it approved a vaccine administered during the third trimester of pregnancy to prevent pertussis — whooping cough — in infants younger than 2 months of age.

Adult vaccination coverage and compliance varies substantially by state, even with adjustments for individual state-characteristics, according to study results presented at IDWeek.

The percentage of Americans who feel strongly that parents should get their children vaccinated has dropped by 10 percentage points since 2001, according to a Gallup poll. The poll showed that only 45% of Americans believe vaccines do not cause autism in children.

European countries that mandated vaccination and imposed stiffer financial penalties for noncompliance had higher vaccination coverage against measles and pertussis, according to a study covering 29 European countries published in Pediatrics.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted unanimously today to recommend that either Td or Tdap may be used for the decennial Td booster, as tetanus prophylaxis for wound management in nonpregnant patients who previously received Tdap, and as additional doses of the catch-up immunization series for tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis in patients 7 years of age or older, including those who are pregnant.