Rotavirus vaccination in Central American children

Abstract

Rotavirus is the leading cause of acute diarrhea in children younger than five years of age around the world. Severe dehydration and mortality rates are higher in developing countries, especially those from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The vaccine has been introduced in the national immunization programs of more than half of Latin American countries, and impact data from some of these nations has been already published. The two rotavirus vaccines, the 2-dose monovalent (RV-1) and the 3-dose pentavalent (RV-5) vaccine, have been available in the market to all Central American countries. Rotavirus vaccine has been universally introduced in the expanded immunization national programs of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Panama, but not in Belize and Costa Rica. This review summarizes what has been published about the epidemiology and impact of universal rotavirus vaccination in Central America.

Keywords::

• Central America
• children
• developing countries
• Latin America
• rotavirus
• vaccination
• vaccine introduction
• vaccine preventable diseases

Financial & competing interests disclosure

None of the authors are employees of a pharmaceutical company. R Ulloa-Gutierrez has served as an invited speaker for Sanofi Pasteur, GSK, Wyeth, Pfizer and Merck; on Advisory Boards of Sanofi Pasteur, GSK and Wyeth; and as chairman and co-chairman of Sanofi Pasteur and GSK; meeting expenses from GSK, Sanofi Pasteur, Wyeth, Pfizer and Merck; and a research study funded by GSK. ML Avila-Aguero has served as an invited speaker for Sanofi Pasteur, GSK, Novartis and Pfizer and on Advisory Boards of Sanofi Pasteur and GSK. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.