Travel Immunization Recommendations for Pediatric Patients

In this clip from the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners in New Orleans, Mary Koslap‐Petraco DNP, PNPPC‐BC, CPNP, FAANP of Stony Brook University School of Nursing and Pediatric Nurse Practitioner House Calls discusses immunization options for children 4 years and younger.

Transcript

Mary Koslap-Petraco, DNP: Well this year we have a new change, especially for travel medicine, and that's travel medicine for babies. If children 6 months of age or older are going to be traveling outside of the United States, we're recommending that they get a dose of hepatitis A vaccine in addition to getting a dose of measles/mumps/rubella vaccine which we've been talking about for about a year or two now, because of the high incidence of measles outside of the United States. With the hepatitis A vaccine, we know the vaccine works in that age group to prevent hepatitis A, especially when traveling to Central and South American countries. 

Another vaccine that we're really promoting the change this year is for IPV or inactivated polio vaccine. All children should have at least 4 doses, but if all of those 4 doses have been administered before the 4th birthday as part of combination vacccines, it's perfectly fine, but they [the patient] do need to get a 5th dose once they're 4 years of age. And that's because it is a killed-virus vaccine, and we want to make sure that we prolong the immunity against polio.