Vaccination

Patients with inflammatory rheumatic disease receiving conventional DMARDs and a prime-boost vaccination strategy — a dose of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and a dose of 23-valent polysaccharide vaccine — saw improved immunogenicity, compared with single pneumococcal conjugate vaccination, according to data published in Arthritis Research & Therapy.

Today is International HPV Awareness Day.

Adults do not need to receive tetanus or diphtheria booster shots if they have completed the childhood vaccination series, according to the results of an observational cohort study.

Influenza vaccination strategies targeting older adults may not be as effective as previously thought, according to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that found increased vaccination rates did not reduce hospitalizations or mortalities among adults aged 65 years and older.

Many young children do not adhere to the early childhood immunization schedule recommended by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, study findings showed.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted unanimously to recommend that healthy U.S. adults at occupational risk for Ebola be vaccinated against the virus using Merk’s V920 vaccine.

The FDA has approved Fluad Quadrivalent (Seqirus) adjuvanted influenza vaccine for adults aged 65 years and older in the United States, according to a news release.

Although pneumococcal conjugate vaccines, or PCVs, have reduced infections caused by Streptococcus pneumonia, rates of meningitis have remained steady the emergence of pneumococcal strains not targeted by PCVs, according to a study published in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.

In 1983, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) held a major conference reviewing the situation with poliomyelitis in the Americas. The conference was noteworthy for the presence of both Albert Sabin and Jonas Salk because they had rarely attended a conference where both were present. There had been a longstanding unfriendly dispute and competition over which vaccine was the better vaccine — Sabin’s live oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) or Salk’s injected inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV). As the two giants in the field each spoke, Sabin went first (alphabetical order was chosen), and when Salk got up to speak, his opening comment was, “Let it go on record that Dr. Sabin and I are in agreement — there is no need for two different vaccines.” While we are using quotation marks, it is possible this is more of a paraphrase from Dr. Pollack’s long-term memory cells of the event. This meeting served as the foundation for initiating a regional effort to interrupt poliovirus transmission in the Americas. The goal of polio eradication in the Americas was declared in May 1985.

As far as hot-button health care topics go, it is hard to top vaccines. Even dropped into a casual conversation, the idea itself — and this includes the slang term for opponents of vaccination — can cause tension and divisiveness.