Vaccine Times: Data

Vaccine Times has another bunch of data and stories that should be of interest to folks.  I suppose that this has some good news (effectiveness of vaccines), but some bad news as well (Pertussis epidemic).  And keep in mind that the last item on this list is what directly led to the DEATH of Dana McCaffery...  I'm sure the anti-vax pro-disease folks don't let that weigh on their conscience at all.

Studies show rotavirus vaccine very effective in reducing rotavirus related, and all-cause, diarrhea hospitalizations rates – Twelve studies published as a special supplement in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal show sustained declines in hospitalizations due to rotavirus in children under 5 in countries that include rotavirus vaccines as part of their routine immunization programs. More specifically they show the following:

• El Salvador – rotavirus hospitalization rates years declined by 81%  in 2008 when two-dose rotavirus vaccine coverage was 50% among newborns. The decline was about 69% in 2009 when the two-dose vaccine coverage grew to 61% among newborns
• Mexico - there was a 40% decline in diarrhea-related hospitalizations  in children younger than aged 5 years in the 2 years after vaccine introduction. No declines were noted during the same time for unvaccinated children. The news article does not specify that the reduction applies to rotavirus specific hospitalizations; the assumption is that the decrease is for all-cause diarrhea hospitalizations
• Panama – in the two years following introduction of the vaccine reductions of  22% and 38% were recorded in all-cause diarrhea-related hospitalizations.
• United States – there was a significant 58% to 86% reduction in rotavirus-related hospitalizations in the 3 years after vaccine introduction in July 2006.
• Australia – after rotavirus vaccine introduction in July 2007, there was an 89% to 94% reduction in rotavirus-related hospitalizations in children younger than 5 years in the 2 years after vaccine introduction.

Chickenpox vaccine prevented 50,000 hospitalization in 6 year span – Over 50,000 chickenpox hospitalizations have been prevented during 2000-2006, which is referred to as the one-dose chickenpox vaccination era. Currently, two doses of the vaccine are recommended in the US. Before the vaccine was introduced, the US experienced over 11,000 annual varicella hospitalizations which resulted in 100 annual deaths. Thus we can extrapolate that between 2000-2006 the vaccine saved anywhere between 400-500 human lives in the US. Researchers found that overall rates of hospitalization from chickenpox decreased by 71% during this time period, with the sharpest declines seen in children under 10 years of age.

Cases of whooping cough soar by 800% in Australia’s Barwon region - Cases of whooping cough have risen from 89 in 2008 to 743 in 2010, a 735% absolute increase from 2008 levels, representing a total that is over 8 times higher than the 2008 number.  Whooping cough is highly dangerous to infants who haven’t had a chance to get the first of the five doses of the DTaP vaccine.