How to vaccinate against rotaviruses

    

    

Doctors newspaper online, 09.10.2019

    

        
        
        

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children's vaccinations

There has been a vaccination recommendation from the STIKO regarding rotaviruses since 2013 – but the vaccination rate remains low.

MUNICH. "More than 90 percent of children become infected with rotavirus during the first years of life," Dr. Markus Kirchner, GlaxoSmithKline's Medical Advisor for Children's Vaccines, at a company-sponsored event in Munich. Children younger than five years are most likely to be affected by rotavirus-related diarrhea. Remedy offers a vaccination, which has been recommended by the STIKO since 2013.

However, infants under one year of age have a well-filled vaccine schedule – and the first dose of rotavirus vaccine is in the sixth week of life. For the oral vaccine with a live vaccine, which should be administered with a minimum interval of four weeks, currently two preparations are available. Rotarix® is available with two doses, with the vaccine series to be completed by the 24th week of life. RotaTeq® consists of three doses and must be administered after 32 weeks of age.

However, the rate of vaccination is far below that of other pediatric vaccines. For example, children born 2015 are only 68.3 percent vaccinated against rotavirus nationwide. Most children were fully vaccinated in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (81.4 percent); least in Bremen (54.7 percent). At county level, the range of vaccination rates is even greater: in Rosenheim district, for example, only 15 percent of children are vaccinated – in Dessau-Roßlau, however, it is 92 percent ( Epid Bull 2019, online May 2 ).

The Saxon Vaccination Commission (SIKO) has been recommending the vaccine since January 2008. The rotavirus vaccination coverage in Saxony is therefore 77 percent.

A recent study at Leipzig Hospital examined children who had been admitted to gastroenteritis within the last 15 years. The results show that there was a 84 percent reduction in rotavirus gastroenteritis-related hospitalization during this period.

Kirchner concluded that rotavirus gastroenteritis is a serious and still common, serious disease. It was the third most notifiable diarrheal disease in 2018 – despite the fact that effective vaccination is available. (jg)

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