Program helps care providers increase pediatric influenza vaccination rates.

2004 AUG 4 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The U.S. National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) has launched a new in-practice resource program, Kids Need Flu Vaccine, Too!

Influenza vaccination rates are the lowest for any recommended childhood vaccine in the United States.

The program provides health care practitioners useful materials online via the NFID website that includes instructions on how to conduct pediatric influenza immunization clinics that will help increase vaccination rates and comply with new recommendations issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other leading organizations to vaccinate 6 through 23 month olds.

Despite long-standing recommendations to provide influenza vaccine to all children with underlying medical conditions, vaccination rates of high-risk children remain low with as few as 10 to 31% being immunized each year. In addition, in the upcoming influenza season, health care providers will be challenged with administering annual influenza vaccination to all infants and toddlers 6 through 23 months of age as well as household contacts and out-of- home caregivers of children between birth and 2 years.

"A number of studies demonstrate most pediatricians and family physicians do not immunize their patients, because they simply do not have the office infrastructure in place to identify and vaccinate these children during the influenza season," said Jon Abramson, MD, a member of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and former chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics' (AAP) Committee on Infectious Diseases.

"NFID's new practice resources will help health care providers develop systems within their practices so that they are better prepared to vaccinate children 6 through 23 months of age against influenza as well as those children with chronic medical conditions, such as asthma or diabetes," continued Abramson.

Recent studies show influenza-associated illness in children younger than 24 months of age leads to hospitalization rates similar to those among adults 65 years of age and older. During the 2003-2004 influenza season, CDC reported more than 150 influenza-related deaths among children.