INTRODUCTION Hepatitis B is of major public health importance. Accurate information on its occurrence, with particular reference to the prevalence of immunity and chronic infection (marked by the presence of hepatitis B core antibody and surface antigen, respectively, in serum), is essential for planning public health programmes for the control of the disease. The generation of marker prevalenc...

INTRODUCTION Routine immunization is a key child survival intervention. Issues related to quality of service delivery pose operational challenges in delivering effective immunization services. Accumulated evidences suggest that "supportive supervision" improves the quality of health care services. During 2009-10, Govt. of Odisha (GoO) and UNICEF jointly piloted this strategy in four districts t...

BACKGROUND Although myocarditis/pericarditis (MP) has been identified as an adverse event following smallpox vaccine (SPX), the prospective incidence of this reaction and new onset cardiac symptoms, including possible subclinical injury, has not been prospectively defined. PURPOSE The study's primary objective was to determine the prospective incidence of new onset cardiac symptoms, clinical ...

BACKGROUND Although the increasing number of recommended immunizations is essential for patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the potentially uncompensated costs of expanded immunizations will present significant challenges for clinics and health systems serving HIV-infected patients. METHODS We estimated costs of providing Gardasil, Prevnar, and Zostavax to eligible pati...

BACKGROUND Immunization remains one of the most important public health interventions and cost effective strategies to reduce child mortality and morbidity associated with infectious diseases. It is estimated to avert between 2 and 3 million deaths each year worldwide. The objective of this study was to assess complete immunization coverage and its associated factors among children aged 12 to 2...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis B (HB) prevention in the low-endemicity province of Quebec Canada, (population: ~8.2 million; birth cohort ~85,000/year), includes two decades of pre-adolescent school-based immunization, as well as catch-up immunization for those born since 1983 and pre-natal maternal HBsAg screening. To estimate the potential added benefit of routine infant HB immunization, notifiable dis...

Background Routine immunization coverage in Nigeria has remained low, and studies have identified a lack of accountability as a barrier to high performance in the immunization system. Accountability lies at the heart of various health systems strengthening efforts recently launched in Nigeria, including those related to immunization. Our aim was to understand the views of health officials on th...

Antenatal care (ANC) coverage is a success story in Africa, since over two-thirds of pregnant women (69 percent) have at least one ANC contact. However, to achieve the full life-saving potential that ANC promises for women and babies, four visits providing essential evidence based interventions – a package often called focused antenatal care – are required. Essential interventions in ANC includ...

BACKGROUND In Ghana, Expanded Programme on Immunization administrative coverages are usually high while childhood immunization status remains low. Majority of children do not receive all the recommended 7 vaccines in 15 doses before 1 year of age. Surveys to validate administrative coverages and identify predictors of immunization status are not given the desired attention. Thus, the objective ...

Table of contents 1.0 Introduction 1.1 General principles of immunization in HIVinfected adults 1.2 Practical aspects of immunization and general contraindication 2.0 Anthrax 2.1 Background 2.2 Epidemiology and risk groups 2.3 Anthrax vaccine 2.3.1 Vaccine efficacy 2.3.2 Vaccine safety 2.4 Recommendations for anthrax pre-exposure prophylaxis in HIV-infected adults 2.5 Post-exposure prophylaxis ...