IZ Express

Issue 1769: August 7, 2024

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Top Stories
 
Immunize.org Website and Clinical Resources 
 
Featured Resources
 
Notable Publications
 
Global News
Top Stories
Immunize.org updates two RSV standing orders templates to protect infants: nirsevimab for infants and Abrysvo (RSV vaccine) during pregnancy

As you prepare to protect infants from RSV this fall through maternal vaccination (Abrysvo, Pfizer) or infant immunization (Beyfortus, Sanofi), download updated standing orders templates from Immunize.org.

Both documents were edited to clarify that if a pregnant person received RSV vaccination before the current pregnancy, the pregnant person should not receive another dose of RSV vaccine. In this situation, the infant should receive nirsevimab after delivery for RSV protection. Additional edits are as follows: 

Standing Orders for Administering Nirsevimab RSV Preventive Antibody (Beyfortus, by Sanofi) to Infants was edited to remove shortage considerations, which are no longer relevant. An updated link was provided to AAP guidance on the use of palivizumab for eligible infants if nirsevimab is unavailable.
 
Standing Orders for Administering Pfizer Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) Vaccine (Abrysvo) during Pregnancy now refers users to information on vaccine components from the FDA package insert; CDC discontinued the table of vaccine excipients in the Pink Book appendix that was previously referenced.

     

A new standing orders template for routine RSV vaccination of previously unvaccinated adults age 75 and older and adults age 60 through 74 with high risk conditions is in development and will be announced in IZ Express when it is available.

Related Links

New VIS translations: Immunize.org posts Marshallese translations of seven popular VISs

Immunize.org continues to expand its repository of VIS translations, all available in print-ready PDF format. Vanderburgh County (Indiana) Health Department generously donated seven Marshallese VIS translations, shown below.



Related Links
Changes coming for 2024–25 season: Vaccines.gov will discontinue tracking details of COVID-19 vaccine availability by facility. CDC plans to display locations that offer COVID-19, influenza, and RSV vaccines to public.

In anticipation of the fall respiratory virus season, CDC is changing the type of information it will provide on Vaccines.gov and Vacunas.gov (the Spanish language version). Currently, these sites offer general information about preparing for the upcoming respiratory virus season. The announced changes are described below.

  • These websites will only indicate that a site (such as a pharmacy or public clinic) offers influenza, COVID-19, and/or RSV vaccine to the public. Users will need to contact the facility directly for additional information about specific brands and availability.
  • The websites will no longer be limited to COVID-19 only
  • More Resources: Vaccines.gov and Vacunas.gov offer additional resources, including a USAGov link to help people connect with their local health department to determine if free vaccinations are available


August is National Immunization Awareness Month; promote vaccination with CDC’s graphics and messages on your social media and websites

August is National Immunization Awareness Month (NIAM). During NIAM, encourage your patients to schedule appointments to ensure they are up to date on annual exams and recommended vaccines.



CDC's Communication and Print Resources offer advocates graphics to share on social media platforms and websites to raise awareness around the importance of staying up to date on recommended vaccines. Include #Ivax2Protect with your social media posts to amplify your messages. 

Related Links

“Checklist of Current Versions of U.S. COVID-19 Vaccination Guidance and Clinic Support Tools”: updates expected when 2024–25 formulations become available

Immunize.org reviews its Checklist of Current Versions of U.S. COVID-19 Vaccination Guidance and Clinic Support Tools at least monthly, prominently indicating when it was last revised at the top of the page. The August 1 version contains no changes from the July version. Immunize.org will update the checklist to reflect 2024–25 formulation guidance when the information is published by CDC. At present, guidance for 2023–2024 remains in effect.

Refer to the checklist for links to important information about the federal COVID-19 Bridge Access Program, which provides COVID-19 vaccines at no cost to uninsured adults. This program ends in August and will not provide access to the 2024–2025 Formula COVID-19 vaccines to adults. The 2024–2025 Formula COVID-19 vaccines will continue to be available at no cost through the VFC program for eligible children through age 18 and to people with health insurance coverage for vaccination, including adults with Medicaid or Medicare.

All COVID-19 vaccine providers should review this checklist regularly. Download the latest documents and discard any outdated versions. The checklist is posted on Immunize.org's Vaccines A–Z: COVID-19 main page to help practices stay up to date.

Related Links

Immunize.org’s Hepatitis B Birth Dose Honor Roll recognizes 585 institutions, including two new honorees 

Immunize.org is pleased to welcome two new institutions into its Hepatitis B Birth Dose Honor Roll, for a total of 585 honorees. The birthing institutions are listed below with their reported hepatitis B birth dose coverage rates in parentheses.   

  • Advocate Trinity Hospital, Chicago, IL (93%) 
  • Wellington Regional Medical Center, Wellington, FL (90%)

Please join us in recognizing these honorees with sustained excellence that qualify for an additional year:   

  • Jefferson Einstein Montgomery Hospital, East Norriton, PA (90%) (3 years)   
  • Norwalk Hospital, Norwalk, CT (91%) (3 years) 
  • Texas Health Huguley Fort Worth South, Burleson, TX (95%) (4 years) 
  • Integris Health Grove Hospital, Grove, OK (97%) (8 years) 
  • Oswego Hospital, Oswego, NY (95%) (8 years)  

The Honor Roll includes 585 birthing institutions from 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, Saipan, and our U.S. military hospital in England.   



The Honor Roll is a key part of Immunize.org’s initiative urging the nation’s hospitals to Give Birth to the End of Hep B. Hospitals and birthing centers are recognized for attaining high coverage for hepatitis B vaccine at birth and meeting additional criteria. To learn whether your organization qualifies and to access the application form, please see Hepatitis B Birth Dose Honor Roll online. 
 
Honorees receive an 8.5" x 11" color certificate suitable for printing and framing. Their acceptance is announced through Immunize.org’s social media channels and to IZ Express’s 54,000+ readers.  
  
Please visit the “Hepatitis B Birth Dose Honor Roll” web page that lists these institutions and celebrates their vigorous efforts to protect infants from perinatal hepatitis B transmission. 

Related Immunize.org Resources 

“What Is the Difference between a Contraindication and a Precaution?” Watch the 1-minute answer, part of the Ask the Experts Video Series on YouTube. 

This week, our featured episode from the Ask the Experts Video Series is What Is the Difference between a Contraindication and a Precaution? The video briefly describes conditions for an increased risk of a serious adverse reaction to a vaccine and whether or not a vaccine should be given to a patient due to risk. 

The 1-minute video is available on our YouTube channel, along with our full collection of quick video answers to popular Ask the Experts questions.

Like, follow, and share Immunize.org’s social media accounts and encourage colleagues and others interested in vaccination to do likewise.

Vaccines in the news

These recent articles convey the potential risks of vaccine-preventable diseases and the importance of vaccination.

Immunize.org Website and Clinical Resources
Spotlight on the website: Institutional honor rolls for vaccination excellence

This week’s Spotlight is on our three honor rolls. Immunize.org recognizes healthcare organizations and colleges/universities that excel in vaccination policy and practice.  

You can locate the honor rolls under the “About” menu tab by selecting the “Recognizing Excellence” menu item. Links are provided to each honor roll, along with an option to view the current honorees. 

The Influenza Vaccination Honor Roll recognizes healthcare organizations that require influenza vaccination for employees to protect their patients. Honorees include 1239 healthcare systems, hospitals, medical practices, pharmacies, and others.    

The Hepatitis B Birth Dose Honor Roll recognizes U.S. birthing institutions that achieve a hepatitis B vaccine birth dose coverage rate of 90% or greater. Honorees must also adopt birth dose policies, procedures, and protocols. Currently, there are 585 honorees. 

The MenB Vaccination Honor Roll recognizes institutions of higher education that adopt policies requiring or recommending MenB vaccination to protect their students and help prevent outbreaks. There are 271 honorees currently listed. 

Each honor roll landing page lists the requirements for your institution to be included and displays an online application. Relevant links to government vaccination mandates, position statements from leading medical organizations, journal articles, editorials, websites, toolkits, and personal stories from those affected by these vaccine-preventable diseases are provided. 

You can look for your institution among current honor roll honorees on a single page. Filter honorees by honor roll type, facility type, and by state. 

Recap: Immunize.org's website with data and maps of state immunization requirements and exemption policies for childcare and school updated for 2024

Each year, Immunize.org updates its state policy web pages on:

Our data are reviewed and verified by every state immunization program each year. These resources are valuable for vaccine advocates, public health, clinicians, families, and policymakers.

Our May 2024 updates include important enhancements to help you.

  • The data table structure and content was standardized
  • Each data table is now downloadable as a PDF, just like the maps
  • A new archive page preserves access to the 2023 data tables and maps


     

Immunize.org thanks our partners at state immunization programs who reviewed and updated our data. To ask questions about any of the content on our site, contact us. If you have questions about a specific state’s requirements, please contact that state immunization program directly.

Related Links

Recap: Standing orders templates for the 2024–25 influenza season now available, along with Immunize.org’s updated reference list of 2024–25 influenza vaccines

Immunize.org’s popular standing orders templates for the 2024–25 influenza season are now available on our website. These standing orders templates help you simplify providing influenza vaccine to everyone in your practice, age 6 months and older, whether you are using an injectable influenza vaccine or a live attenuated influenza vaccine.

Standing Orders for Administering Influenza Vaccine to Adults and Standing Orders for Administering Influenza Vaccine to Children and Teens incorporate the recent ACIP recommendation to permit the use of high dose inactivated influenza vaccine (IIV) or adjuvanted IIV for solid organ transplant recipients age 18 through 64 years and receiving immunosuppressive medication.

    

Influenza Vaccine Products for the 2024–2025 Influenza Season, our one-page reference document, is also available. For each vaccine, the manufacturer, trade name, common abbreviation, dosage form, mercury content, age range, CVX code, and product billing (CPT) code are listed.



Related Links

Recap: Standing orders template for administering pneumococcal vaccines to adults updated to include PCV21

Immunize.org updated its Standing Orders for Administering Pneumococcal Vaccines to Adults to include PCV21 (Capvaxive, Merck) as an acceptable option for adults recommended to receive PCV, as recommended by ACIP and CDC.



Related Links

Recap: Turkish translation now available for Immunize.org’s patient handout, “Immunizations for Babies: A Guide for Parents” 

Immunize.org posted a Turkish translation of the current version of its popular patient handout, Vaccinations for Babies: A Guide for Parents, generously donated by Betül Polatdemir, MD, and Nur Polatdemir. This new translation joins 15 other translations of this resource to give a family-friendly, simple overview of vaccines needed in the first year of life.



Related Links

  • Immunize.org: Translations of clinical resources and VISs
  • Immunize.org: Clinical Resources A–Z main page, where you can filter by topic, vaccine, language, or other criteria
Featured Resources
Teaching young people about vaccines: reliable educational resources on how vaccines work

Planning for the upcoming school year or looking for science projects? The resources below can help children and adolescents explore vaccines and the immune system.

For elementary school children

For middle school children For high school students
Quality improvement organizations offer an immunization microsite with billing, payment, and educational resources

The IPRO Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO), a collaboration of three organizations with decades of experience working as Medicare QIOs, posted the “What about Vaccines? Every Time!” WAVE microsite to encourage providers to talk with families about vaccines. It also includes valuable resources for vaccination providers on billing and payment.



The microsite links directly to the WAVE Campaign Resources main page for resources to support your vaccination efforts.

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Explore the www.Give2MenACWY​.org website to increase coverage for the meningococcal ACWY booster doses and other adolescent vaccinations

Immunize.org's www.Give2MenACWY.org website promotes the importance of adolescent vaccination, including the recommended MenACWY vaccine booster dose at age 16. Many teens are behind on vaccines because of the pandemic, so vaccine outreach is more important than ever.

Materials on this colorful website for healthcare professionals incorporate the 2020 ACIP meningococcal vaccine recommendations and coverage statistics from CDC’s National Immunization Survey–Teen (NIS–Teen). One particularly popular resource on the site is the update Algorithm for MenACWY Immunization in Adolescents 11 through 18 Years of Age.

 

The website is divided into five easy-to-access sections:

The site also categorizes materials according to whether they are primarily of interest to providers, to adolescents, or to parents.

Visit Give2MenACWY.org and enjoy browsing (and deploying) its bountiful resources.

Related Links 

Notable Publications
“The Recombinant Shingles Vaccine Is Associated with Lower Risk of Dementia” published in Nature Medicine

In its July 25 issue, Nature Medicine published The Recombinant Shingles Vaccine Is Associated with Lower Risk of Dementia. The abstract appears below. 

Here we used a natural experiment opportunity created by the rapid transition from the use of live to the use of recombinant vaccines to compare the risk of dementia between vaccines. We show that the recombinant vaccine is associated with a significantly lower risk of dementia in the 6 years post-vaccination [compared to the live herpes zoster vaccine]. Specifically, receiving the recombinant vaccine is associated with a 17% increase in diagnosis-free time, translating into 164 additional days lived without a diagnosis of dementia in those subsequently affected. The recombinant shingles vaccine was also associated with lower risks of dementia compared to two other vaccines commonly used in older people: influenza and tetanus/diphtheria/pertussis vaccines. The effect was robust across multiple secondary analyses, and present in both men and women but greater in women. These findings should stimulate studies investigating the mechanisms underpinning the protection and could facilitate the design of a large-scale randomised control trial to confirm the possible additional benefit of the recombinant shingles vaccine.
 
Related Link

Global News
“Progress toward the Elimination of Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C in the Country of Georgia, April 2015–April 2024” published in MMWR

CDC published Progress toward the Elimination of Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C in the Country of Georgia, April 2015–April 2024 on August 1 in MMWR. A portion of the summary appears below. 

Hepatitis B and hepatitis C are leading causes of cirrhosis and liver cancer. In April 2015, the country of Georgia launched a hepatitis C elimination program to address its high prevalence of hepatitis C. . . .

As of April 2024, 83% of persons with chronic hepatitis C have received a diagnosis, and 86% of those diagnosed have initiated treatment. Sustained hepatitis B vaccination coverage above 90% has substantially reduced prevalence of infection in children; however, prevalence in adults remains high. . . .

Identifying persons with chronic hepatitis C who have never received a diagnosis and linking them to care, and scaling up hepatitis B screening and treatment, would accelerate progress toward hepatitis B and hepatitis C elimination by 2030.



Access the MMWR article in HTML or PDF.

Related Links

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About IZ Express

IZ Express is supported in part by Grant No. 1NH23IP922654 from CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. Its contents are solely the responsibility of Immunize.org and do not necessarily represent the official views of CDC.

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ISSN 2771-8085

Editorial Information

  • Editor-in-Chief
    Kelly L. Moore, MD, MPH
  • Managing Editor
    John D. Grabenstein, RPh, PhD
  • Associate Editor
    Sharon G. Humiston, MD, MPH
  • Writer/Publication Coordinator
    Taryn Chapman, MS
    Courtnay Londo, MA
  • Style and Copy Editor
    Marian Deegan, JD
  • Web Edition Managers
    Arkady Shakhnovich
    Jermaine Royes
  • Contributing Writer
    Laurel H. Wood, MPA
  • Technical Reviewer
    Kayla Ohlde

This page was updated on .

Our Affiliated Sites

For the Public: VaccineInformation.org
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65+ Flu Defense
Protect vulnerable, older adult patients from influenza.
Give2MenACWY.org
Improve protection from meningococcal serogroups ACWY.
Mass Vaccination Resources
Access guidance documents, toolkits, and helpful resources.
NAIIS
Home of the National Adult and Influenza Immunization Summit.