TIMELINESS VACCINATION OF MEASLES CONTAINING VACCINE AND BARRIERS TO VACCINATION AMONG MIGRANT CHILDREN IN EAST CHINA

Monday, 11th of August 2014

[source]PLoS One[|source]

Receiving the vaccination within a recommended age period is an important program quality issue in many countries. Several studies suggest that a certain proportion of the target population lacking timely vaccination could contribute to measles outbreaks, even if the overall immunization coverage of those people was high. Consequently, the importance of the recommended vaccination schedule has been reinforced in National Immunization Programs of many countries.

In this report, the authors studied the MCV coverage rate and its timeliness in children aged ≥8 months in Yiwu province of China. The report also identifies the possible barriers to timely MCV vaccination before documenting that MCV coverage rates were suboptimal and promotion of timely vaccination needs to be encouraged. Additional details and recommendations are accessible at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3755000/ 

 

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The reported coverage rates of first and second doses of measles containing vaccine (MCV) are almost 95% in China, while measles cases are constantly being reported. This study evaluated the vaccine coverage, timeliness, and barriers to immunization of MCV1 and MCV2 in children aged from 8–48 months.

METHODS: We assessed 718 children aged 8–48 months, of which 499 children aged 18–48 months in September 2011. Face to face interviews were administered with childrens mothers to estimate MCV1 and MCV2 coverage rate, its timeliness and barriers to vaccine uptake.

 

RESULTS: The coverage rates were 76.9% for MCV1 and 44.7% for MCV2 in average. Only 47.5% of surveyed children received the MCV1 timely, which postpone vaccination by up to one month beyond the stipulated age of 8 months. Even if coverage thus improves with time, postponed vaccination adds to the pool of unprotected children in the population. Being unaware of the necessity for vaccination and its schedule, misunderstanding of side-effect of vaccine, and child being sick during the recommended vaccination period were significant preventive factors for both MCV1 and MCV2 vaccination. Having multiple children, mothers education level, household income and children with working mothers were significantly associated with delayed or missing MCV1 immunization.

CONCLUSIONS: To avoid future outbreaks, it is crucial to attain high coverage levels by timely vaccination, thus, accurate information should be delivered and a systematic approach should be targeted to high-risk groups.