Maternal vaccination: A narrative review

Background: Vaccinations in general are considered to be one of the greatest achievements in medicine, saving millions of lives globally. Aim: This narrative review highlights issues related to vaccination in pregnancy and provides information on those vaccines registered for use in pregnancy. Method: Published articles on vaccinations in pregnancy are included in this review. The search engines used included PubMed, Medline, Google Scholar, and ScienceDirect. Results: Vaccinations during pregnancy are more likely to be administered in high income countries (HICs) compared to low-income countries (LICs) due to easier access to healthcare services and better communicable disease awareness. Maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality rates associated with infectious diseases are higher in LICs with access to maternal care services, infrastructure and hospital equipment lacking in these settings. Conclusion: Suitable vaccinations are recommended for use in pregnancy to prevent harm to women, their foetuses and newborns from some communicable diseases, and they have resulted in declines in maternal and infant morbidity and mortality. Furthermore, this review has shown that vaccination during pregnancy is not only safe for both the woman and her foetus but also effective. Therefore, health professionals and national governments should strongly consider approved vaccinations prior to or during pregnancy.

National EPI coverage survey report in Ethiopia, 2006

Background: Routine EPI reports have shown an upward trend in immunization coverage in recent years in Ethiopia; however; regional disparities exist. Objective: To determine regional coverage of child and TT immunization and assess reasons for not utilizing immunization services. Methods: The revised 2005 WHO-EPI regional coverage cluster survey method was used to determine the sample size for the study. Regional immunization status of 12-23 months of children and mothers with 0-11 months of infants forchild immunization and TT immunization respectively were taken as the unit of analysis. A sample of 6;903 children between 12-23 months and 6;952 mothers with infants between 0-11 months from 468 clusters in 11 regions of the country were surveyed in June 2006. Results: The weighted national immunization coverage assessed by card plus history for children aged 12-23 months vaccinated before the age of one year was BCG 83.4; DPT1 84.3; DPT3 66.0; measles 54.3; and fully immunized children 49.9. The weighted national TT2+ coverage and rate of Protection at Birth (PAB) assessed by card plus history was 75.6and 63.0respectively. Conclusion: The survey showed a 10 percentage point of increment in DPT3 coverage compared to 2001 survey coverage. However; progress was not uniform in all regions of the country. Despite the improve-ment in the access to immunization in the country; DPT3 coverage was less than 30and dropout rate remained very high in three emerging regions. Effective behavioral change communication (BCC) strategies need to be designed and implemented to tackle high dropout rate in the program. Besides; health workers training program on interpersonal communication and Reaching Every District (RED) approach should be fully implemented to increase and sustain high level of immunization coverage in Ethiopia

Accidents neurologiques de la vaccination anticoquelucheuse : a propos de 17 observations

Les sequelles neurologiques et les cas mortels representent tout le danger et la gravite de la vaccination anticoquelucheuse. De l'analyse de 17 observations; le traitement curatif des accidents neurologiques de cette vaccination ne peut etre que symptomatique alors que sa prevention reside dans le respect scrupuleux des contre-indications qui meritent d'etre enumerees: maladie infectieuse aigue; recente ou evolutive; les affections malignes; les cardiopathies decomposees; la nephropathie aigue; le traitement immuno-suppresseur; les antecedents personnels de souffrance aigue ou perinatale; de prematurite ou d'hypotrophie foetale; la survenue des convulsions et/ou d'autres signes neurologiques a la suite d'une vaccination anticoquelucheuse anterieure; les encephalopathies et la comitialite