Vaccine-Preventable Disease

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.

Rates of severe childhood hand, foot and mouth disease, or HFMD, have declined significantly in Chengdu, China, since the introduction of a localized pediatric enterovirus 71 immunization program in 2016, according to results from a longitudinal surveillance study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Despite a CDC recommendation that everyone aged 6 months or older receive a seasonal influenza vaccine, only 24.5% of childcare centers reported having a child influenza vaccine requirement, and even fewer centers required caregivers to be vaccinated, according to a study published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.

Study findings showed that last season’s influenza vaccine “offered no substantial protection” against H3N2 viruses that moved through the United States late in the season, highlighting the ongoing challenge of producing a vaccine that works against this influenza A subtype and leading two experts to wonder if an additional H3N2 strain should be added to the seasonal vaccine.

More than 140,000 people died from measles last year, with most deaths occurring in children aged younger than 5 years, according to findings published in MMWR. Measles cases increased 167% from 2016 to 2018, according to the report, with estimated mortality from the disease increasing since 2017.

A single-dose typhoid conjugate vaccine effectively reduced typhoid in children aged 9 months to 16 years by more than 81% during a phase 3 trial in Nepal, according to results published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Despite a 2015 law banning personal belief vaccine exemptions for children entering California schools, the rate of exemptions is expected to decrease only slightly in the state by 2027, according to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

In the United States and Canada, pediatric patients who undergo liver transplant show lower age-appropriate immunization rates at time of transplant than nontransplant recipients in a similar age group, according to a study published in JAMA.

NEW YORK — In this video, Joseph A. Bocchini Jr., MD, professor and chairman of the department of pediatrics at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, discusses common travel-related infections.

NEW YORK — Kevin A. Ault, MD, OB/GYN and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Kansas Medical Center, presented an overview of his talk on maternal immunization at the Infectious Diseases in Children Symposium.