Enhancing the work of the Department of Health and Human Services national vaccine program in global immunization: recommendations of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee: approved by the National Vaccine Advisory Committee on September 12, 2013

Assessment of childhood immunization services at private healthcare facilities in Indonesia: a case study in a highly-populated city

Introduction

The need to enhance the utilization of the private sector for immunization programs in Indonesia while maintaining the high quality of services provided is evident. This study aimed to rapidly assess immunization services at private healthcare facilities in Indonesia by using Bandung, the most densely populated city, as the reference case.

Methods

Initially, a situation analysis was conducted by collecting data from selected healthcare facilities (n = 9). Furthermore, a qualitative study was taken into account by developing framework approaches and conducting interviews with different layers, such as mid-level managers at healthcare facilities (n = 9), professional organizations (n = 4), and public stakeholders (n = 7).

Results

The situation analysis showed that private healthcare facilities had provided sufficient time for essential childhood immunization services with adequate staff. Nevertheless, the number of limited staff the Ministry of Health (MoH) has trained remains a programmatic problem. Furthermore, private healthcare facilities have used the MoH guidelines and additional internal guidelines for immunization services as the primary reference, including in the efforts to provide complete and reliable equipment. Vaccine availability at private healthcare facilities is manageable with an acceptable out-of-stock level. The results of our interviews highlighted three key findings: the lack of coordination across public and private sectors, the need for immunization service delivery improvement at private healthcare facilities, and the urgency to strengthen institutional capacity for advocacy and immunization systems support.

Conclusion

Even though private healthcare facilities have been shown to make a modest contribution to childhood immunization services in Indonesia, efforts should be made to expand the role of private healthcare facilities in improving the performance of routine immunization programs.

Epitope-Based Vaccine Design for Tuberculosis HIV Infection Through in silico Approach

<b>Background and Objective:</b> Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the leading causes of HIV-related death among people living with it. TB occurs more often severe in a weakened immune system, particularly when a patient is infected with HIV. People infected with HIV are 15-22 times more likely to fall ill with TB. In this research, an epitope-based vaccine has been specially designed for people living with HIV, since the current tuberculosis vaccine Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) has been proven to cause more harm than good in treating patients suffering from poor immune systems. <b>Materials and Methods:</b> The epitopes were selected from polysaccharide-protein of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and protein envelope of the Human immunodeficiency virus. B cell epitopes have been predicted using BepiPred 2.0, while T cell epitopes predicted using SMM, both are provided by Immune Epitope Database (IEDB). <b>Results:</b> This research had designed vaccine combinations for each type of epitopes and types of the pathogen with world population coverage of >85% for MHC class I epitopes and >99% for MHC class II epitopes. <b>Conclusion:</b> With each epitope were selected based on how strong its bond with HLA and how many HLA can bind with it. As this research was done through <i>in silico</i> approach, <i>in vivo</i> test is still needed to guarantee the result of the designed vaccine.

Consequences of Undervaccination - Measles Outbreak, New York City, 2018-2019

BACKGROUND

Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, but the risk of outbreaks owing to international importations remains. An outbreak of measles in New York City began when one unvaccinated child returned home from Israel with measles; onset of rash occurred on September 30, 2018, 9 days after the child returned home.

METHODS

We investigated suspected cases of measles by conducting interviews, reviewing medical and immunization records, identifying exposed persons, and performing diagnostic testing. Measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine (given as either MMR or measles-mumps-rubella-varicella vaccine and collectively referred to as MMR vaccine) uptake was monitored with the use of the Citywide Immunization Registry. The total direct cost to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene was calculated.

RESULTS

A total of 649 cases of measles were confirmed, with onsets of rash occurring between September 30, 2018, and July 15, 2019. A majority of the patients (93.4%) were part of the Orthodox Jewish community, and 473 of the patients (72.9%) resided in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn, New York. The median age was 3 years; 81.2% of the patients were 18 years of age or younger, and 85.8% of the patients with a known vaccination history were unvaccinated. Serious complications included pneumonia (in 37 patients [5.7%]) and hospitalization (in 49 patients [7.6%]); among the patients who were hospitalized, 20 (40.8%) were admitted to an intensive care unit. As a result of efforts to promote vaccination, the percentage of children in Williamsburg who received at least one dose of MMR vaccine increased from 79.5% to 91.1% among children 12 to 59 months of age. As of September 9, 2019, a total of 559 staff members at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (7% of the agency) had been involved in the measles response. The cost of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene response was $8.4 million.

CONCLUSIONS

Importation of measles and vaccination delays among young children led to an outbreak of measles in New York City. The outbreak response was resource intensive and caused serious illness, particularly among unvaccinated children.

Enhancing Immunization Rates in Two Urban Academic Primary Care Clinics: A Before and After Assessment

PURPOSE

Immunization rates in many cities in the United States remain suboptimal compared to Healthy People 2020 Goals and are lower than national averages. This study aimed to determine whether a lecture-based educational intervention targeted at nurses and medical assistants would improve vaccination rates.

METHODS

We conducted a quality improvement study in two urban academic family medicine clinics serving a predominantly Medicaid patient population as well as a sizable proportion of refugees. The intervention consisted of 3 lectures that were delivered to clinic nurses and medical assistants. Vaccinations in 1689 patients - 872 in the 3-month preintervention period, 817 in the 3-month postintervention period - were analyzed.

RESULTS

Following the educational intervention, a statistically significant increase was seen only in human papillomavirus vaccine immunization rates for 13-18-year-olds (from 90.7% [n=54] to 100% [n=45]; P=0.036). When the results were stratified by clinic, only 1 site showed statistically significant increases in: pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (23-valent) for high-risk 19-to-64-year-olds (from 36.4% [n=154] to 47.8% [n=136]; P=0.049); Haemophilus influenzae type B vaccine for 2-month-to-5-year-olds (from 91.1% [n=112] to 97.3% [n=111]; P=0.048); and meningococcal conjugate vaccine (quadrivalent) for 13-18-year olds (from 85.2% [n=27] to 100% [n=26]; P=0.042). No increases were seen for our study's refugee patient population (n=171), and a significant decrease of the second-dose measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (P=0.036) occurred in this subcohort.

CONCLUSIONS

Ultimately, this quality improvement study demonstrated that educational interventions alone have a limited impact on increasing immunization rates.

The National Vaccine Advisory Committee at 30: Impact and opportunity

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NVAC activities improved the U.S. immunization enterprise over the past 30 years.

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NVAC focused on the implementation of immunization across the lifespan and system.

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Tracking the implementation of NVAC recommendations remains difficult.

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Standards for practicesacross the lifespan continue to help practitioners immunize.

Thirty years after passage of legislation that created the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) “to achieve optimal prevention of human infectious diseases through immunization and to achieve optimal prevention against adverse reactions to vaccines,” this review reflects NVAC’s role and impact on the U.S. vaccine and immunization enterprise as an external advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services. We reviewed the history of NVAC in the context of the principles of its establishment, with a focus on its reports and recommendations. We performed a systematic literature review to identify NVAC reports published in widely-accessible public health journals, and we reviewed the available archives to identify other reports and resolutions approved by the committee not published in journals. We characterized key issues considered by NVAC according to the five goals of the 2010 National Vaccine Plan. The predominance of NVAC activities to date related to the implementation of immunization across the lifespan and the many aspects of the system needed to foster the goal of full immunization. Reflecting on the impacts of NVAC to date, this review identified 30 NVAC approved reports published in journals, 22 stand-alone resolutions, and 26 unique unpublished reports. The development of new and improved vaccines continues to represent a significant priority for NVAC, and we identified several challenges related to future vaccine innovation. Given the many factors that impact on policy changes in the vaccine and immunization enterprise, we encountered challenges associated with demonstrating attribution of specific policy changes to NVAC recommendations. Although difficult to quantify, this review suggests that NVAC played an important role in the improvements in the U.S. immunization enterprise over the past 30 years and that NVAC can and will continue to play an important role supporting U.S. immunization going forward.

Policy making for vaccine use as a driver of vaccine innovation and development in the developed world

In the past 200years, vaccines have had unmistakable impacts on public health including declines in morbidity and mortality, most markedly in economically-developed countries. Highly engineered vaccines including vaccines for conditions other than infectious diseases are expected to dominate future vaccine development. We examine immunization vaccine policy as a driver of vaccine innovation and development. The pathways to recommendation for use of licensed vaccines in the US, UK, Canada and Australia have been similar, including: expert review of disease epidemiology, disease burden and severity; vaccine immunogenicity, efficacy and safety; programmatic feasibility; public demand; and increasingly cost-effectiveness. Other attributes particularly important in development of future vaccines are likely to include: duration of immunity for improved vaccines such as pertussis; a greater emphasis on optimizing community protection rather than direct protection only; programmatic implementation, feasibility, improvements (as in the case of development of a universal influenza vaccine); public concerns/confidence/fears related to outbreak pathogens like Ebola and Zika virus; and major societal burden for combating hard to treat diseases like HIV and antimicrobial resistant pathogens. Driving innovation and production of future vaccines faces enormous economic hurdles as available approaches, technologies and regulatory pathways become more complex. As such, cost-mitigating strategies and focused, aligned efforts (by governments, private organizations, and private-public partnerships) will likely be needed to continue to spur major advances in vaccine technologies and development.

Categorization of National Pediatric Quality Measures

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

The number of quality measures has grown dramatically in recent years. This growth has outpaced research characterizing content and impact of these metrics. Our study aimed to identify and classify nationally promoted quality metrics applicable to children, both by type and by content, and to analyze the representation of common pediatric issues among available measures.

METHODS

We identified nationally applicable quality measure collections from organizational databases or clearinghouses, federal Web sites, and key informant interviews and then screened each measure for pediatric applicability. We classified measures as structure, process, or outcome using a Donabedian framework. Additionally, we classified process measures as targeting underuse, overuse, or misuse of health services. We then classified measures by content area and compared disease-specific metrics to frequency of diagnoses observed among children.

RESULTS

A total of 386 identified measures were relevant to pediatric patients; exclusion of duplicates left 257 unique measures. The majority of pediatric measures were process measures (59%), most of which target underuse of health services (77%). Among disease-specific measures, those related to depression and asthma were the most common, reflecting the prevalence and importance of these conditions in pediatrics. Conditions such as respiratory infection and otitis media had fewer associated measures despite their prevalence. Other notable pediatric issues lacking associated measures included care of medically complex children and injuries.

CONCLUSIONS

Pediatric quality measures are predominated by process measures targeting underuse of health care services. The content represented among these measures is broad, although there remain important gaps.