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I read with interest the article by France et al1 in the December issue of the Archives, which is the second article to demonstrate that influenza vaccination in mothers does not impact respiratory tract illness rates in their infants.2 While the authors state that vaccination is still recommended, pediatricians must ensure the data are interpreted in the proper context.
Of concern is that internal medicine and obstetric colleagues who are disinclined to immunize, because they face financial constraints regarding vaccine administration and thus have not achieved high vaccine coverage rates in pregnant mothers, will cite this data as justification to further reduce their efforts.3 However, it should be noted that protection of infants from hospitalization and influenza-like illness requires a cocoon of protection of all the infant's close contacts, not solely mothers.4 Paternal immunization, which is not addressed in the article, and immunization of other siblings are also required to reduce influenza-like illness in children.
This article should have provided further justification of offering immunization services to all members of an infant's household when requesting medical care. Such programs, for example those using the hospital nursery staff to immunize both parents of newborns, have been shown to reduce influenza in children younger than 6 months old.5
Correspondence: Dr Shah, Department of Pediatrics, State University of New York at Stonybrook, 130 Post Ave, Suite 418, Westbury, NY 11590 (shetaldoc@hotmail.com).
Financial Disclosure: None reported.
Country-Specific Mortality and Growth Failure in Infancy and Yound Children and Association With Material Stature
Use interactive graphics and maps to view and sort country-specific infant and early dhildhood mortality and growth failure data and their association with maternal
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