Office preparation for fall vaccine administration: Are you ready?

Office preparation for fall vaccine administration: Are you ready? | Image Credit: © REDPIXEL - © REDPIXEL - stock.adobe.com.

As all pediatric providers know, the administration of immunizations is a significant part of the day-to-day pediatric primary care office practices. Discussions with parents, school-age children, and teenagers occur at all routine health care visits. Some conversations are easy: parents accept the recommendations, school-age children are reluctant to “get the shots” but when involved in the conversation, they understand the meaning of preventive care, and while there may be some resistance from adolescents, they most often trust us and accept our recommendations. That’s a good day.

But then, the vaccine hesitant and/or the vaccine refuser is the next parent and/or adolescent visit. The :refuser” visit takes extra time, provider patience, and well thought out ways to respond to parent and/or adolescent concerns. The provider must be prepared to talk about the differences between immunization facts versus misinformation that permeates social media sites, that confuse and frighten parents and teenagers. These conversations are challenging but worth our extra time and attention to protect of our pediatric populations from contracting vaccine preventable diseases.

Available influenza and COVID-19 vaccines

The October issue of Contemporary Pediatrics is the vaccine issue. “What to expect during the 2024-2025 flu season,”contains information that providers can share with parents about the available 2024-2025 influenza vaccine and the updated 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine.

Providers must remember that children 6 months through 8 years (up to their 9th birthday) should receive 2 doses of the influenza vaccine if it is the first time they are receiving the influenza vaccine.¹ If an infant or child 6 months through 8 years received only 1 dose of the influenza (Flu) vaccine in the 2023-2024 season, then the infant or child needs to receive 2 doses of the influenza vaccine in the 2024-2025 season.¹ In addition, any child 6 months through 8 years must receive 2 doses if the child’s vaccine history is unknown.1 Providing parents with links to information on the CDC website for parents is very helpful for parents [and teenagers] to receive easy to understand evidence-based vaccine information.²

For the COVID-19 vaccines, I always review the CDC website for all updates.³ The information is clearly written and in Table format for administering COVID-19 vaccines to children from 6 months to 4 years.³ The same site provides information for children 5 to 11 years, and ‘people’ ages 12 years and older.³ Information is also available for providers to determine when an individual should receive the 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine, if they recently had a diagnosis of COVID-19. Information is also available for the various COVID-19 vaccines that are available for the different age children.³

Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine

The October issues of Contemporary Pediatrics, also has an article in the Pediatric Pharmacology section on Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine. I highly recommend reviewing Table 2 in this article, which provides a detailed summary of the available pneumococcal conjugate vaccines.⁴

Yearly responsibilities for pediatric providers for vaccine updates

From October 1, 2023, to August 31, 2024, 197 laboratory-confirmed influenza associated pediatric deaths were reported to the CDC via their monitoring system for deaths in children under 18 years.⁵

These mortality data strongly support the major responsibility of all pediatric providers to review and highly recommend to parents and adolescents the annual vaccine updates from the CDC and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Protection of our pediatric, adolescent, and young adult populations from vaccine preventable diseases and death is a major responsibility for all pediatric providers. We must take this responsibility seriously!

References:

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Flu and children. CDC. 2024. Accessed October 4, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/highrisk/children.html

2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Parent information. CDC. 2024. Accessed October 4, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/parents/

3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Staying up to date with COVID-19 vaccines. CDC. 2024. Accessed October 4, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/covid/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html

4. McArn AL. Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine: A glimpse into current recommendations. Contemporary Pediatrics, 40(9),34-41. https://Contemporarypediatrics.com

5. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Influenza activity in the United States during the 2023-2024 season and composition of the 2024-2025 influenza vaccine. CDC. September 25, 2024. Accessed October 4, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/whats-new/flu-summary-2023-2024