Considerations on the current universal vaccination policy against hepatitis A in Greece after recent outbreaks

Greece is the only European Union member state that in 2008 included hepatitis A (HAV) vaccine in the routine national childhood immunization program (NCIP). Given that the resources allocated to public health have dramatically decreased since 2008 and that Greece is a low endemicity country for the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-01, Vol.10 (1), p.e0116939-e0116939
Main Authors: Mellou, Kassiani, Sideroglou, Theologia, Papaevangelou, Vassiliki, Katsiaflaka, Anna, Bitsolas, Nikolaos, Verykouki, Eleni, Triantafillou, Eleni, Baka, Agoritsa, Georgakopoulou, Theano, Hadjichristodoulou, Christos
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Age
Analysis
Autoregressive models
Child
Child, Preschool
Children
Cost analysis
Cost control
Cost-Benefit Analysis - legislation & jurisprudence
Disease control
Disease Outbreaks - prevention & control
Disease prevention
Epidemics
Epidemiology
Greece - epidemiology
Health aspects
Health surveillance
Hepatitis
Hepatitis A
Hepatitis A - epidemiology
Hepatitis A - immunology
Hepatitis A Vaccines - immunology
Humans
Hygiene
Immunization
Infections
Labor unions
Measles
Morbidity
Outbreaks
Population
Population Surveillance
Public health
Risk groups
Shellfish
Teenagers
Vaccination
Vaccination - legislation & jurisprudence
Vaccines
West Nile virus
Young Adult
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Summary:Greece is the only European Union member state that in 2008 included hepatitis A (HAV) vaccine in the routine national childhood immunization program (NCIP). Given that the resources allocated to public health have dramatically decreased since 2008 and that Greece is a low endemicity country for the disease, the benefit from universal vaccination has been questioned. The aim of this paper is to summarize the available epidemiological data of the disease for 1982-2013, and discuss the effects of universal vaccination on disease morbidity. Descriptive analysis, ARIMA modeling and time series intervention analysis were conducted using surveillance data of acute HAV. A decreasing trend of HAV notification rate over the years was identified (p
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0116939