News and Media Resources:
Immunization Works April 2012 Issue
News and Summaries
Measles in the United States, 2011: In 2000, the United States achieved measles elimination (defined as interruption of year-round endemic measles transmission). However, importations of measles into the United States continue to occur, posing risks for measles outbreaks and sustained measles transmission. During 2011, a total of 222 measles cases (incidence rate: 0.7 per 1 million population) and 17 measles outbreaks (defined as three or more cases linked in time or place) were reported to CDC, compared with a median of 60 (range: 37–140) cases and four (range: 2–10) outbreaks reported annually during 2001–2010. The April 20, 2012, MMWR updates an earlier report on measles in the United States during the first five months of 2011. Of the 222 cases, 112 (50%) were associated with 17 outbreaks, and 200 (90%) were associated with importations from other countries, including 52 (26%) cases in U.S. residents returning from abroad and 20 (10%) cases in foreign visitors. Other cases associated with importations included 67 (34%) linked epidemiologically to importations, 39 (20%) with virologic evidence suggesting recent importation, and 22 (11%) linked to cases with virologic evidence of recent importation. Most patients (86%) were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status. The increased numbers of outbreaks and measles importations into the United States underscore the ongoing risk for measles among unvaccinated persons and the importance of vaccination against measles.
Current Issues in Immunization NetConference: The latest netconference was March 29, 2012. The moderator was Andrew Kroger. Iyabode Akinsanya-Beysolow presented information about the 2012 recommended childhood and adolescent immunization schedules, and Raymond Strikas addressed the 2012 recommended adult immunization schedules. Cathy Hogan addressed how participants can use content syndication (a web sharing tool) to display the immunization schedules on their websites easily, and how the schedules will be automatically updated whenever CDC makes changes to them.
The netconference is archived and is now available on the netconference web page. The next netconference is scheduled for July 26, 2012.
Influenza Information
Stay Informed! Influenza information is updated frequently. Please visit the Flu web site for the latest updates.
Meetings, Conferences and Resources
New Resources from the Vaccines for Preteens and Teens Campaign: In the new 30-second Spanish language television PSA, a busy Hispanic mother receives a call from her doctor reminding her to get her adolescent son and daughter caught up on their shots. Please visit the Preteen and Teen Campaign web page to view this PSA and the accompanying English PSA.
New plain-language fact sheets provide detailed information about each of the routinely recommended adolescent vaccines, including Tdap, meningococcal vaccine, the HPV vaccine, and the seasonal influenza vaccine. There is also a new fact sheet summarizing all of the vaccine recommendations for adolescents. Spanish versions will be coming soon, so please check back with the website.
Health-care providers will find this new fact sheet
[PDF-375 KB, 4 pages] full of useful information about adolescent vaccine recommendations, side effects, and contraindications. It also includes tips for ensuring that their adolescent patients are fully vaccinated. CDC has also created a new reminder/recall e-card that providers can send to parents of adolescents.
An updated matte article explains the latest HPV vaccine recommendations for girls and boys. It is approximately 450 words, and can be placed directly into your newsletters or posted on your website.
EHR-IIS Interoperability Enhancement Project for Patient De-duplication:
Inconsistencies in determining which records represent the same patient, as well as how information about a patient’s immunization record is combined from several immunization reports, negatively affect the overall data quality and usefulness of immunization information systems (IIS). CDC established the Patient Data De-duplication Expert Panel to identify and implement improvement opportunities, discuss the gaps regarding current patient de-duplication practices, and provide support to IIS programs implementing a best practices standard.
The panel consists of 14 industry experts representing the CDC Public Health Informatics and Technology Program Office (PHITPO), the American Immunization Registry Association (AIRA), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the Indian Health Service (IHS), IIS vendors, EHR vendors, and IIS programs.
The panel kicked off in August 2011 and seeks to address the following by July 2012:
- Identify data that will enhance the quality of the de-duplication engine;
- Review existing data within the patient de-duplication process (retrospective);
- Address manual review and the merge/unmerge process;
- Create a robust testing methodology/test cases;
- Create tools to evaluate a de-duplication engine;
- Determine the best practices surrounding a de-duplication engine.
Members of the de-duplication panel participated in a very successful in-person session in February 2012. The facilitated session included a discussion of practice-based solutions for evaluating IIS patient-level de-duplication software approaches and capabilities; practice-based IIS patient-level de-duplication solutions around manual data entry, incoming data, and existing patient data; best practice manual review processes and techniques; and specifications for an updated, robust, patient-level, de-duplication test toolkit and test cases including the considerations of sensitivity and specificity.
Following the session, the panel is focusing on developing best practices and strategies that will enable the IIS community to have an objective basis for discussing trends, sources of duplication records, and approaches, and for choosing ways to collectively improve IIS community de-duplication efforts.
More information can be found on the IIS-EHR web page.
ACIP Meeting: The next Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting will be held June 20-21, 2012, in Atlanta, Georgia. Please visit the ACIP meeting web page for archived presentation slides, meeting minutes, and additional information.
New Meningococcal Disease and Meningitis Websites: New websites have been launched for meningococcal disease and meningitis. These user-friendly websites provide a better experience for those seeking information about either topic.
Surveillance of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Course: This self-study program provides information on case investigation, outbreak control, disease reporting, and case notification for vaccine-preventable diseases. The course discusses the epidemiologically important data that should be collected during case investigations and presents methods for enhancing surveillance. The course provides current surveillance guidance for HPV, measles, rotavirus, mumps, varicella, hepatitis B, pneumococcal disease, Haemophilus influenzae, pertussis, and meningococcal disease. The course is now available in web-on-demand format and DVD format. The DVD can be ordered on the NCIRD publication ordering form.
Save the Date: The 10th National Conference on Immunization and Health Coalitions (NCIHC) will be in New Orleans on May 23-25, 2012. Please visit the NCIHC website
for additional information.
Vaccine Storage and Handling Guide: NCIRD has released the updated Vaccine Storage and Handling Guide [PDF-718 KB, 77 pages] (formerly Vaccine Management). It is a comprehensive and authoritative document on storage and handling guidelines for specific vaccines (including combination vaccines). Available in this document are guidelines on vaccine-specific shipping requirements; arrival conditions; storage requirements; and information on shelf life, preparation, and special instructions.
CDC and Medscape Videos: This special series of commentaries is part of a collaboration between CDC and Medscape and is designed to deliver CDC's authoritative guidance directly to Medscape's physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other health-care professionals. In this series, experts from CDC offer video commentaries on the current topics important to practicing clinicians. NCIRD has contributed to a variety of commentaries.
Immunization Publications: Please visit the NCIRD publications order form for the latest immunization publications. Copies of the 2011 Surveillance of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases DVD, the 2011 Parents Guide to Childhood Immunizations, and currentflu campaign materials are available for ordering.
CDC Job Openings: CDC is committed to recruiting and hiring qualified candidates for a wide range of immunization and other positions. Researchers, Medical Officers, Epidemiologists, and other specialists are often needed to fill positions within CDC. For a current listing, including international opportunities, please visit CDC’s employment web page.
The Immunization Works database manager and editor can be contacted at nipimmzwrks@cdc.gov.
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Content last reviewed on April 27, 2012
Content Source: National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases
