Rotavirus vaccination for infants !!

Rotavirus vaccination programme for babies 'to begin in July' 19 April 2013 | By Madlen Davies Exclusive Health visitors have been told that the rotavirus vaccination programme is likely to begin two months earlier than planned with babies being immunised from July, Pulse has learnt. The programme for GP practices to vaccinate around 840,000 infants under four months old with the vaccine was due to begin in September, but information on the campaign obtained by Pulse suggests the national enhanced service will begin from 1 July 2013 instead. The Department of Health refused to confirm whether the information was correct, but confirmed it would be making an announcement on the new programme 'shortly'. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) concluded adding rotavirus to the children's immunisation programme was cost-effective last year, and the DH said it is expected to halve the number of rotavirus-caused cases of gastroenteritis and could lead to 70% fewer hospital stays. GP practices will receive an item of service fee of £7.63 for a completed course of two doses of oral vaccine given to infants aged two months with the second dose given no sooner than four weeks later and no more than six months later. An email from Ian Packman in the DH's Health Visitor Programme, and obtained by Pulse, says: 'Please find attached a flyer and leaflet outlining the rotavirus immunisation that is due to be introduced into the routine childhood immunisation schedule from 1st July 2013.'Please feel free to cascade these documents to any health visitors in your team.' The leaflet published by Public Health England, says: 'From 1 July 2013, the routine childhood immunisation schedule will include a vaccine to protect babies against rotavirus infection – a common cause of diarrhoea and sickness that can become very serious.' When the programme was announced in November, the DH said vaccines would be offered in September this year to give manufacturers time to create enough vaccinations. A DH spokesperson said: 'We are planning to introduce a routine rotavirus programme and will be announcing the details shortly. Unfortunately a draft version of the leaflet was inadvertently distributed which contains errors and should be ignored.' The spokesperson refused to say what the errors were, and whether the programme had been delayed since the announcement to health visitors. Dr George Kassianos, the RCGP's lead on prescribing said: 'I am delighted to hear the news because we need to have the rotavirus immunisation in place for winter. January, February and March are the worst months.'If we start in July we will immunise children so they suffer less diarrhoea in winter.'

轮状病毒疫苗或可预防轮状病毒性胃肠炎 发布时间：2013-4-16 来源：药品资讯网信息中心轮状病毒感染是全世界导致婴幼儿发生严重急性胃肠炎的最常见原因，几乎每个儿童在5岁前都会经历一次有症状的感染。为了评估轮状病毒疫苗对于预防儿童轮状病毒性胃肠炎的作用，比利时安特卫普大学疫苗及感染性疾病研究院研究员Tessa Braeckman领导的科研团队做了一项病例对照试验，试验结果发表于《英国医学杂志》上。研究纳入2008年2月～2010年6月39家比利时医院的215例因轮状病毒性胃肠炎入院的儿童作为实验组（所有患者均经过聚合酶链式反应检测后确诊），276例年龄相符，同一时期内非因胃肠炎而入住同一家医院的儿童作为对照组。评估实验组及对照组的疫苗接种状况及其作用。结果发现，99例实验组（48%）及244例对照组（91%）患者至少接种过一次轮状病毒疫苗（P<0.001），在所有接种的轮状病毒疫苗中，单价的疫苗占92%（n=594）。以是否住院作为评估标准，接种过两次单价轮状病毒疫苗后，未经调整的有效性在总体患者中是90%（95% CI：81%～95%），在3～11个月的婴儿中是91%（95% CI：75%～97%），在12个月以上的患者中是90%（95% CI：76%～96%）。经聚合酶链式反应检测后发现，对照组患者中的52%存在G2P基因型阳性。而轮状病毒对于G2P的有效性为85%（95% CI：64%～94%），对G1P的有效性为95%（95% CI：78%～99%）。25%的对照组患者经检测后发现存在有腺病毒、星状病毒和/或诺瓦克病毒感染，疫苗对于合并上述感染的患者的有效性是86%（95% CI：52%～96%）。上述研究表明，尽管G2P阳性率及合并其他病毒感染的比率很高，但轮状病毒疫苗能有效防止比利时儿童发生轮状病毒性胃肠炎。