1 Pan American Health Organization, Immunization Unit, Washington, D.C., United States of America (currently assigned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Immunization Program, Global Immunization Division, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America). Send correspondence to: Vance Dietz, Global Immunization Division, National Immunization Program, Centers for Disease Cont...

CONTEXT Considerable concern has been generated in the lay and medical communities by a theory that increased measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) immunization among young children may be the cause of an apparent marked increase in autism occurrence. OBJECTIVE To determine if a correlation exists in secular trends of MMR immunization coverage among young children and autism occurrence. DESIGN, SETTI...

The WHO/EPI cluster sampling method for immunization coverage surveys is part of the course for management training in EPI programmes. The application of this method, based on a framework of villages, is impractical in dispersed populations common in many countries in Africa. To make the method work under those circumstances leads to unacceptable bias, which tends to overestimate the real cover...

This paper analyses trends in coverage of three doses of diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus vaccine (DPT3) by wealth groups in selected countries. It discusses the depth of disparities in coverage by wealth and changes during the 1990s. Complete assessment of equity in income and its trends have been discussed in other papers, however issues related to children's well-being have often been brushed as...

BACKGROUND Childhood vaccinations help reduce and eliminate many causes of morbidity and mortality among children. The objective of this study was to compare 4:3:1:3:3 (4+ doses of diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and pertussis vaccine, 3+ doses of poliovirus vaccine, 1+ doses of measles-containing vaccine, 3+ doses of Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine, and 3+ doses of hepatitis B vaccine) co...

BACKGROUND Vaccination of health care workers (HCWs) is an important patient safety initiative. It prevents influenza infection among patients and reduces staff illness and absenteeism. Despite these benefits, HCW influenza immunization uptake is low. Therefore, strategies to achieve high immunization coverage in HCWs, barriers to uptake, and perceptions of mandatory influenza immunization poli...

Background: The Expanded Program on Immunization was launched in Nigeria in 1980 but the target for immunization coverage has been elusive. As part of its social responsibilities the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) supported immunization activities in the Niger Delta region of the country. In this study a cross sectional study was carried out to estimate the coverage of BCG, OPV, DPT...

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 The National Immunization Survey demonstrates that national immunization coverage in 2002 remained near the all-time highs achieved in 2000. However, that survey cannot detect whether coverage is uniformly high within relatively small areas or populations. The measles resurgence in the early 1990s revealed that coverage was low in some areas, particularly among inner-city children fr...