Timeliness of MMR vaccination—influence on vaccination coverage

Over the last seven years, and especially in 2001, a declining coverage for MMR vaccination in 2-year-olds has been noted in Sweden. By recording actual date of vaccination in a cohort of almost 4000 children in a county in central Sweden, we found that parents’ decision to postpone vaccination by u...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Vaccine 2004-10, Vol.22 (31), p.4228-4232
Main Authors:	Dannetun, Eva, Tegnell, Anders, Hermansson, Göran, Törner, Anna, Giesecke, Johan
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Age Age Factors Applied microbiology Babies Biological and medical sciences Child, Preschool Children & youth Data Collection Disease Families & family life Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology Health facilities Human viral diseases Humans Immunization Schedule Infant Infectious diseases Mass Vaccination - statistics & numerical data Measles Measles virus Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccine - administration & dosage Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccine - economics Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccine - therapeutic use Medical sciences MEDICIN Medicin och hälsovetenskap MEDICINE Microbiology Mortality Mumps virus Population Population Surveillance Pre-school children Rubella virus Studies Sweden - epidemiology Vaccination coverage Vaccines Vaccines, antisera, therapeutical immunoglobulins and monoclonal antibodies (general aspects) Viral diseases Viral diseases with cutaneous or mucosal lesions and viral diseases of the eye
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Summary:	Over the last seven years, and especially in 2001, a declining coverage for MMR vaccination in 2-year-olds has been noted in Sweden. By recording actual date of vaccination in a cohort of almost 4000 children in a county in central Sweden, we found that parents’ decision to postpone vaccination by up to 1.5 years beyond the stipulated age of 18 months accounted for about half the reported drop in 2001. Even if coverage thus improves with time, postponed vaccination adds to the pool of unprotected children in the population. The design of the current national surveillance system overestimates coverage at 2 years and fails to record delayed vaccination. To avoid future outbreaks that can appear around imported cases of measles it is crucial to attain high coverage levels by timely vaccination.
ISSN:	0264-410X 1873-2518 1873-2518