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Vaccinate Baby against gastro?
Baby will surely not escape it! The so-called rotavirus gastroenteritis – a particular type of virus – affects all children at least once during their first two years of life. We now know that rotavirus is responsible for 40% of infant diarrhea, which is often severe.
Anti-gastro reflexes to adopt above all
Essential hygiene measures such as washing hands after each trip to the toilet, as before and after preparing meals, changing … indisputably limit the occurrence of gastroenteritis.
Breastfeeding can also reduce the age of the first infection because it protects the baby from infectious agents. Some even speak of a reduction of a third of rotavirus diarrhea if breastfeeding were more practiced in France.
However, if the anti gastro vaccine may seem a good way to avoid it, it is no longer recommended by the French health authorities. In a notice dated April 21, 2015 on the two oral vaccines against gastroenteritis, the High Council of Public Health (HCSP) suspended the recommendation for vaccination of infants against rotavirus infections. The reason : the death of two infants, who died following this vaccination, from an acute intussusception. Since the vaccine was marketed, 508 cases of adverse effects have been recorded in France, including 201 serious. Most were digestive.
No precise vaccination strategy
“Neither the international literature relating to industrialized countries, nor the national epidemiological data make it possible to identify comorbidity factors or environmental risk factors (…) likely to define a population of infants for which the benefit / risk balance could be greater. favorable ”, added the HCSP in its report of April 21, 2015. Consequently, this does not allow him to propose a selective vaccination strategy and to know which infants should be vaccinated or not against gastroenteritis. “The HCSP also recalls that if this vaccination is carried out on an individual basis and within the framework of its marketing authorization (AMM), the doctor must inform the family of the vaccinated child of the risk of acute intussusception and the clinical manifestations that should justify an emergency consultation ”, Concludes the report.