Vaccine Type May Affect DTaP Adherence

Vaccine guidelines currently recommend the 3+1 diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis (DTaP) vaccine series for infants and toddlers, but coverage and timeliness of receiving the vaccines continues to be at less than optimal levels in the United States. A poster presentation at the virtual 2020 ID Week presented the results of a study that compared coverage and timeliness between DTaP-containing combination vaccines (ie, quadrivalent/pentavalent) and stand-alone vaccines (ie, trivalent).¹

The researchers developed a cohort of children who were born between 2009 and 2016 with >24 months of continuous enrollment from birth and a record of > 1 DTaP vaccine being administered. It was created using the Optum de-identified Clinformatics Data Mart database. The children were labelled by DTaP vaccine uptake: combination vaccines only, stand-alone vaccines only, or a mixture of both. Primary outcome for the study was completing a 4-dose series of DTaP by the time the patient was 20 months of age.

The cohort included 412,450 children, comprised of 200,568 girls (48.6%) and 211,882 boys (51.4%). Among these children, 167,091 were administered only combination vaccines; 61,342 children received the stand-alone vaccine only; and 184,017 members of the cohort were administered a mixture of stand-alone and combination vaccine doses. The researchers found that the completion of the 4-dose series was highest in children who had only received the combination vaccine (75.5%).

Read the full article on Contemporary Pediatrics.