1. Quantifying the impact of mass vaccination programmes on notified cases in the Netherlands
- Author
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M van Wijhe, H.E. de Melker, Jacco Wallinga, Scott A. McDonald, H. Korthals Altes, Anna D Tulen, Maarten J. Postma, PharmacoTherapy, -Epidemiology and -Economics, Microbes in Health and Disease (MHD), Real World Studies in PharmacoEpidemiology, -Genetics, -Economics and -Therapy (PEGET), and Value, Affordability and Sustainability (VALUE)
- Subjects
Male ,Epidemiology ,ENGLAND ,CHILDREN ,0302 clinical medicine ,030212 general & internal medicine ,Child ,POPULATION ,Netherlands ,education.field_of_study ,public health ,Diphtheria ,ADMISSION RATES ,MUMPS ,Poliomyelitis ,Vaccination ,Treatment Outcome ,Infectious Diseases ,Virus Diseases ,symbols ,Female ,Vaccine-preventable diseases ,Immunisation (vaccination) ,030231 tropical medicine ,Population ,UNITED-STATES ,TIME-SERIES ,Mass Vaccination ,Rubella ,Measles ,RUBELLA ,03 medical and health sciences ,symbols.namesake ,Disease Transmission, Infectious ,medicine ,Humans ,Poisson regression ,MEASLES OUTBREAK ,education ,Disease Notification ,Original Paper ,Immunization Programs ,business.industry ,infectious disease epidemiology ,Infant ,medicine.disease ,vaccine-preventable diseases ,business ,COMMUNITIES ,Demography - Abstract
Vaccination programmes are considered a main contributor to the decline of infectious diseases over the 20th century. In recent years, the national vaccination coverage in the Netherlands has been declining, highlighting the need for continuous monitoring and evaluation of vaccination programmes. Our aim was to quantify the impact of long-standing vaccination programmes on notified cases in the Netherlands. We collected and digitised previously unavailable monthly case notifications of diphtheria, poliomyelitis, mumps and rubella in the Netherlands over the period 1919–2015. Poisson regression models accounting for seasonality, multi-year cycles, secular trends and auto-correlation were fit to pre-vaccination periods. Cases averted were calculated as the difference between observed and expected cases based on model projections. In the first 13 years of mass vaccinations, case notifications declined rapidly with 82.4% (95% credible interval (CI): 74.9–87.6) of notified cases of diphtheria averted, 92.9% (95% CI 85.0–97.2) cases of poliomyelitis, and 79.1% (95% CI 67.1–87.4) cases of mumps. Vaccination of 11-year-old girls against rubella averted 49.9% (95% CI 9.3–73.5) of cases, while universal vaccination averted 68.1% (95% CI 19.4–87.3) of cases. These findings show that vaccination programmes have contributed substantially to the reduction of infectious diseases in the Netherlands.
- Published
- 2018