[Vaccination status in very and extremely preterm infants at the age of 2 years--a nationwide pilot analysis]

Preterm infants are at increased risk of suffering from vaccine preventable diseases. Therefore it is recommended to vaccinate them in time at the same chronological age as full term infants. Several reports have shown that vaccinations of very and extreme low birth weight infants are often delayed but till now there are no data for Germany. Our study analysed the vaccination rates and suffered complications of 318 preterm infants with birth weights under 1 500 g at the age of 2 years from all over the country copying their vaccination-record and asking the parents to answer a questionnaire. The preterm infants received the first 3 doses of the pentavalent or hexavalent vaccines consequently (1st dose: 100%, 2nd dose: 100%, 3rd dose: 97.5%), whereas the booster dose was accomplished to a lesser extent (89.0%) during their second year of life. The majority of the vaccinations were administered delayed. Moreover, the preterm infants received the first doses of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine quite consequently, but the booster dose was again injected less frequent. According to their parents 17.8% of these preterm infants suffered from non-severe adverse reactions and none of them had an episode of apnoea following the immunisation. In conclusion preterm infants in Germany receive their basic immunisations consequently, but often too late. There is still the need to improve the frequency of the booster dose application especially in the second year of life and to prevent delays of vaccinations.