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Gardasil, Chicken-pox and rotarix vaccines
Mary Kedward :
The Travel Clinic Ltd, Hills Road, Cambridge
GARDASIL
The vaccine is licensed for girls and women from 9 to 26 years of age. The vaccine is safe and effective in this age group. Ideally, females should get the vaccine before they become sexually active, i.e. before they can be exposed to HPV.
HPV is a common virus that is passed on via genital contact. There are more than 100 HPV types and they infect genital areas. Sometimes they cause no harm and any infection goes away on its own. However, sometimes the virus persists and causes cells to change - this can lead to:
o cervical cancer
o pre cancerous lesions
o genital warts.
GARDASIL is a vaccine that protects against HPV types 6, 11, 16 and 18. These four types of HPV cause 70& of cervical cancers and 90% of genital warts.
GARDASIL will not protect against diseases that are not caused by HPV (i.e. other cancers and other sexually transmitted diseases).
Gardasil may not protect against HPV types to which you have already been exposed. Unfortunately there is no test available, as yet, to check which type you have/haven't got.
The vaccine is licensed for girls and women from 9 to 26 years of age. The vaccine is safe and effective in this age group. Ideally, females should get the vaccine before they become sexually active, i.e. before they can be exposed to HPV
This vaccine will be included in the British Vaccination Schedule from late next year, initially targeting12-13 year olds. This does mean that older teenagers may not be vaccinated until 2010 or 2011 when hopefully there will be a catch up programme
Varicella (chickenpox) is an acute, highly contagious viral disease with worldwide distribution. While mostly a mild disorder in childhood, varicella tends to be more severe in adults. It may be fatal, especially in neonates and in immunocompromised persons. Varicella-zoster virus (VZV), the causative agent, shows little genetic variation and has no animal reservoir. Following infection, the virus remains latent in neural ganglia, and upon subsequent reactivation VZV may cause zoster (shingles), a disease mainly affecting the elderly and immunocompromised persons. Although individual cases may be prevented or modified by varicella-zoster immune globulin or treated with antiviral drugs, control of varicella can be achieved only by widespread vaccination. Varicella vaccines based on the attenuated Oka-strain of VZV have been marketed since 1974, and the positive results of extensive safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness analyses have warranted the introduction of these vaccines into the childhood immunization programmes of several industrialized countries. After observation of study populations for periods of up to 20 years in Japan and 10 years in the United States, more than 90% of immunocompetent persons who were vaccinated as children were still protected from varicella.
http://www.who.int/vaccines/en/varicella.shtml#summary
Rotarix
Rotarix is indicated for the prevention of rotavirus or rotavirus gastroenteritis in Children. Gastroenteritis caused by rotavirus can be potentially serious for young babies and has fast appearing symptoms of fever, diarrhoea and vomiting. The diarrhoea usually lasts for five to eight days, which in combination with fever and vomiting can result in babies becoming dehydrated and if diarrhoea becomes severe, they may require admission to hospital. It is known to be a common virus that accounts for up to fifty percent of all severe acute cases of childhood gastroenteritis where a child is hospitalised. This is a course of two, the doses should be separated by 4 weeks and the course should be completed by the age of 24 weeks.
Contact: Mary Kedward
T: 01223 367362
E: mkedward@travelcliniccambridge.co.uk
W: www.travelcliniccambridge.co.uk
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