Recommended Childhood and Adolescent Immunization Schedule—United States, July-December 2004 FREE

MMWR. 2004;53:Q1-Q3

CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) periodically reviews the recommended childhood and adolescent immunization schedule to ensure that the schedule is current with changes in manufacturers' vaccine formulations and reflects revised recommendations for the use of licensed vaccines, including those newly licensed. Recommendations and format of the childhood and adolescent immunization schedule for January–June 2004 were approved by ACIP, the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and published in January 2004.¹ This report updates that schedule with the recommendation that, beginning in fall 2004, children aged 6–23 months, as well as household and out-of-home caregivers for such children, receive annual influenza vaccine.² This change is reflected in the revised childhood and adolescent immunization schedule for July–December 2004 (Figure 1). A catch-up immunization schedule for children and adolescents who start late or who are >1 month behind remains unchanged from that published in January 2004 (Table 1).

The childhood and adolescent immunization schedule for July–December 2004 differs from the previous schedule in the following ways:

The range of recommendations bar for influenza vaccine for children aged 6-23 months has been moved above the dotted red line, indicating that these children should be vaccinated annually.

The influenza vaccine footnote has been updated to highlight the recommendation that healthy children aged 6-23 months and close contacts of healthy children aged 0-23 months receive influenza vaccine because children in this age group are at substantially increased risk for influenza-related hospitalizations.

The influenza vaccine footnote has been updated to highlight the recommendation that health-care workers and other persons (including household members) in close contact with persons in groups at high risk be vaccinated annually.

The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act requires that all health-care providers provide parents or patients with copies of Vaccine Information Statements before administering each dose of the vaccines listed in the schedule. Additional information is available from state health departments and at http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/vis.

Detailed recommendations for using vaccines are available from the manufacturers' package inserts, ACIP statements on specific vaccines, and the 2003 Red Book.³ ACIP statements for each recommended childhood vaccine can be viewed, downloaded, and printed from CDC's National Immunization Program website at http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/acip-list.htm. Instructions on the use of Vaccine Information Statements are available at http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/vis/vis-instructions.pdf. In addition, guidance on how to obtain and complete a Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) form is available at http://www.vaers.org or by telephone, 800-822-7967.

References: 3 available