[BCG and infants with a high risk of tuberculosis: a study of the vaccination rate in Marseille after suspension of the BCG requirement]

Abstract

Objectives: The obligation for BCG vaccination, suspended in July 2007, was replaced by a vaccination targeting children with a high risk of tuberculosis. The purpose of this study was to assess the vaccination rate of infants living Marseilles and its suburbs who had criteria for BCG vaccination.

Material and methods: This observational study consisted in interviewing the parents of children born after the suspension of the obligatory BCG vaccination and admitted for a medical visit at the Pediatric Emergency Department of the Timone-Enfants University Hospital between 1 December 2008 and 31 March 2009. For each child, we noted the demographic data, the criteria for BCG eligibility, the vaccination status, and, when the child was not vaccinated but at risk for tuberculosis, the information received by the family on the vaccination.

Results: A total of 224 out of 271 eligible children were included (82.6%; mean age, 7.1 ± 4.9 months). One hundred and fifty-seven infants had at least one criterion for BCG vaccination; 116 of them were vaccinated (73.9%). The number of criteria for the vaccination did not influence the vaccine rate. Families of non-vaccinated high-risk children (n=41) had been informed about BCG in 39% of the cases. BCG was planned in 11 of these 41 infants.

Conclusion: Eighteen months after suspension of the obligation for BCG vaccination, our results are encouraging but underline the need for improving information to families concerned by this new vaccination policy.