Pentavalent Vaccine As Effective As Individual Vaccines In Pediatric Study.(Brief Article)

2001 NOV 21 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - Investigators at the University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA) Center for Vaccine Research have established that a new combination vaccine produced by GlaxoSmithKline, Inc., is safe and induces immunity in children comparable with that observed with standard individual vaccine doses.

The pentavalent vaccine (DTaP-HB-IPV), which would reduce the number of shots required before a child reaches two years old, provides suitable protection against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B virus, and poliovirus, UCLA researchers say.

In the UCLA study, infants were vaccinated with the new vaccine or a vaccine series combining the new vaccine and oral polio vaccine (OPV), or with another GlaxoSmithKline vaccine product (DTaP-HB) given in combination with inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) or OPV, or with individual standard doses of the respective vaccines.

Four hundred infants, divided into four groups, began receiving the vaccines at two month of age and continued with appropriate vaccine doses at four and six months. Booster doses of recommended vaccines were subsequently administered to 229 returning children between the ages of 12 and 18 months.

"There were no vaccine-related serious adverse events in any group after any vaccine dose," reported S.H. Yeh and coworkers. All groups experienced similar rates of ...