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Researchers from Kids’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) discovered that transmission of rotavirus vaccine strains in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is uncommon and with out medical penalties, strongly suggesting that giving the rotavirus vaccine to eligible infants throughout their hospitalization supplies immune advantages that outweigh any dangers.
The findings, revealed within the journal Pediatrics, may function the premise for a change in medical follow. The paper is titled “Incidence of Transmission of Vaccine-Strain Rotavirus in a NICU that Routinely Vaccinates.”
Rotavirus is a virus that infects the liner of the intestines and is often characterised by signs reminiscent of excessive fever, persistent and extreme vomiting and diarrhea.
Earlier than rotavirus vaccines have been out there, most kids have been contaminated earlier than age 5, and the virus contributed to roughly half 1,000,000 baby deaths worldwide, and tens of hundreds of hospitalizations of younger youngsters within the U.S., every year. Rotavirus stays the most typical reason behind diarrhea in infants and younger youngsters.
The primary dose of a rotavirus vaccine is normally given to newborns at two months previous. Traditionally, many NICUs don’t give rotavirus vaccines to inpatients on account of a theoretical threat of horizontal transmission of vaccine strains, which means that the strains of the virus within the vaccine may probably infect at-risk sufferers, since some vaccinated infants shed stay, attenuated vaccine-strain rotavirus of their stool for weeks after administration.
Holding vaccination till sufferers are discharged from the NICU typically leaves infants with lengthy hospitalizations, who’re most susceptible to extreme rotavirus illness on account of underlying well being situations, probably making them ineligible to ever obtain the vaccine. Prior retrospective research discovered very minimal threat of horizontal transmission in NICU settings.
“As an infectious disease doctor who has worked on Infection Control in NICUs for many years, I was struck by how rarely vaccine virus was transmitted and how it did not cause clinical symptoms,” stated co-senior research writer Susan E. Coffin, MD, an attending doctor for the Division of Infectious Ailments at CHOP.
“Our study, conducted in a large NICU with both multi-bed open pods and private rooms, adds to current evidence suggesting that risk of transmission of vaccine-strain rotavirus to unvaccinated infants in NICU settings is low.”
Bringing collectively experience from throughout CHOP, together with the Division of Infectious Ailments, the Division of Neonatology, the CHOP Analysis Institute and Scientific Futures, this research included all sufferers admitted to CHOP’s 100-bed N/IICU for one yr.
Stool specimens have been collected weekly and examined to search for rotavirus vaccine strains. Investigations have been carried out for suspected transmission occasions.
Among the many 1,238 infants admitted, 226 doses of the RotaTeq vaccine have been administered. A complete of 3448 stool samples have been analyzed, together with 2,252 from 686 unvaccinated sufferers.
The overwhelming majority of these unvaccinated sufferers (681, or 99.3%) by no means examined constructive for the rotavirus vaccine pressure. The remaining 5 sufferers examined constructive for a rotavirus vaccine pressure. No gastroenteritis signs have been recognized in these transmission circumstances.
“While this study was conducted in a level 4 referral NICU, our combination of both single patient rooms as well as open pods supports its generalizability to a variety of NICUs of different layouts and sizes,” stated Kathleen A. Gibbs, MD, an attending neonatologist within the Division of Neonatology and Medical Director of High quality Enchancment and Affected person Security of the NICU at CHOP.
“Ultimately, these findings add to the existing safety data and suggest the known benefits of NICU administration of the rotavirus vaccine outweigh the low risks of vaccine-strain transmission.”
Extra info:
Zalot et al, Incidence of Transmission of Vaccine-Pressure Rotavirus in a NICU that Routinely Vaccinates, Pediatrics (2024). DOI: 10.1542/2024-067621
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Kids’s Hospital of Philadelphia
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Rotavirus vaccine is protected to be used in NICU infants, researchers discover (2024, December 9)
retrieved 9 December 2024
from https://medicalxpress.com/information/2024-12-rotavirus-vaccine-safe-nicu-babies.html
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