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Catch-up vaccination campaign in children between 6 and 8 years old during COVID-19 pandemic: The experience in a COVID hub in Milan, Italy

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 has led to disruption in routine immunization programs around the world. Effective strategies need to be developed to address the decline in vaccine coverage to avoid preventable disease outbreaks. Our study reports a 4-days campaign for the catching-up of missed vaccinations in...

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Autores principales: Mancarella, Matteo, Natarelli, Federica, Bertolini, Caterina, Zagari, Antonino, Enrica Bettinelli, Maria, Castaldi, Silvana
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9098956/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35570078
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.05.005
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author Mancarella, Matteo
Natarelli, Federica
Bertolini, Caterina
Zagari, Antonino
Enrica Bettinelli, Maria
Castaldi, Silvana
author_facet Mancarella, Matteo
Natarelli, Federica
Bertolini, Caterina
Zagari, Antonino
Enrica Bettinelli, Maria
Castaldi, Silvana
author_sort Mancarella, Matteo
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: COVID-19 has led to disruption in routine immunization programs around the world. Effective strategies need to be developed to address the decline in vaccine coverage to avoid preventable disease outbreaks. Our study reports a 4-days campaign for the catching-up of missed vaccinations in children aged between 6 and 8 years, in Milan, Italy. METHODS: The catch-up vaccination campaign (21st-24th of September 2021) involved children born in 2013, 2014 and 2015. These cohorts, if not already immunized, received the fourth dose of the Diphtheria-Tetanus-acellular Pertussis and Poliomyelitis vaccination (DTaPP4), the second dose of the Measles-Mumps and Rubella vaccination (MMR2) and Chickenpox, according to the Italian vaccine schedule. RESULTS: 3,943 letters were sent to children with a missing vaccination. 1,315 children, 33% of expected, were vaccinated during the campaign. The 2015 cohort was the one that benefited most from the initiative, 955 children were vaccinated for a total of 1,864 doses administered. This has led to a significant increase of 20.0 percentage points (p.p.) in vaccination coverages for the fourth dose of DTaPP and the second dose of MMR. 214 children for the 2014 cohort and 146 for the 2013 cohort were vaccinated during the following days, these cohorts have been already called previously therefore the participation in the campaign and consequently the increase in vaccination coverages were less substantial. CONCLUSIONS: This experience has demonstrated that a mass vaccination campaign could be a useful tool in catch-up strategies, even during the pandemic. It should be part of a bigger immunization program strategy that also includes efforts to simultaneously strengthen routine immunization services. With the appropriate organizational improvements, this initiative could pave the way for future successful campaigns involving different age groups and vaccinations.
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spelling pubmed-90989562022-05-13 Catch-up vaccination campaign in children between 6 and 8 years old during COVID-19 pandemic: The experience in a COVID hub in Milan, Italy Mancarella, Matteo Natarelli, Federica Bertolini, Caterina Zagari, Antonino Enrica Bettinelli, Maria Castaldi, Silvana Vaccine Article BACKGROUND: COVID-19 has led to disruption in routine immunization programs around the world. Effective strategies need to be developed to address the decline in vaccine coverage to avoid preventable disease outbreaks. Our study reports a 4-days campaign for the catching-up of missed vaccinations in children aged between 6 and 8 years, in Milan, Italy. METHODS: The catch-up vaccination campaign (21st-24th of September 2021) involved children born in 2013, 2014 and 2015. These cohorts, if not already immunized, received the fourth dose of the Diphtheria-Tetanus-acellular Pertussis and Poliomyelitis vaccination (DTaPP4), the second dose of the Measles-Mumps and Rubella vaccination (MMR2) and Chickenpox, according to the Italian vaccine schedule. RESULTS: 3,943 letters were sent to children with a missing vaccination. 1,315 children, 33% of expected, were vaccinated during the campaign. The 2015 cohort was the one that benefited most from the initiative, 955 children were vaccinated for a total of 1,864 doses administered. This has led to a significant increase of 20.0 percentage points (p.p.) in vaccination coverages for the fourth dose of DTaPP and the second dose of MMR. 214 children for the 2014 cohort and 146 for the 2013 cohort were vaccinated during the following days, these cohorts have been already called previously therefore the participation in the campaign and consequently the increase in vaccination coverages were less substantial. CONCLUSIONS: This experience has demonstrated that a mass vaccination campaign could be a useful tool in catch-up strategies, even during the pandemic. It should be part of a bigger immunization program strategy that also includes efforts to simultaneously strengthen routine immunization services. With the appropriate organizational improvements, this initiative could pave the way for future successful campaigns involving different age groups and vaccinations. The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2022-06-09 2022-05-13 /pmc/articles/PMC9098956/ /pubmed/35570078 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.05.005 Text en © 2022 The Authors Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Mancarella, Matteo
Natarelli, Federica
Bertolini, Caterina
Zagari, Antonino
Enrica Bettinelli, Maria
Castaldi, Silvana
Catch-up vaccination campaign in children between 6 and 8 years old during COVID-19 pandemic: The experience in a COVID hub in Milan, Italy
title Catch-up vaccination campaign in children between 6 and 8 years old during COVID-19 pandemic: The experience in a COVID hub in Milan, Italy
title_full Catch-up vaccination campaign in children between 6 and 8 years old during COVID-19 pandemic: The experience in a COVID hub in Milan, Italy
title_fullStr Catch-up vaccination campaign in children between 6 and 8 years old during COVID-19 pandemic: The experience in a COVID hub in Milan, Italy
title_full_unstemmed Catch-up vaccination campaign in children between 6 and 8 years old during COVID-19 pandemic: The experience in a COVID hub in Milan, Italy
title_short Catch-up vaccination campaign in children between 6 and 8 years old during COVID-19 pandemic: The experience in a COVID hub in Milan, Italy
title_sort catch-up vaccination campaign in children between 6 and 8 years old during covid-19 pandemic: the experience in a covid hub in milan, italy
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9098956/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35570078
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.05.005
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