TUESDAY, Jan. 9 (HealthDay News) -- When administered to infants at ages 2, 3 and 4 months, Pediacel, a five-component vaccine, is immunogenic, according to a report published in the January issue of the Archives of Disease in Childhood. Pediacel contains diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis, inactivated poliovirus and Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccines. However, administration of a meningococcal group C conjugate vaccine at the same time can influence the response to Hib vaccine.
Elizabeth Miller, M.D., of the Health Protection Agency in London, U.K., and colleagues compared Pediacel with the licensed diphtheria/tetanus/whole-cell pertussis/Haemophilus influenzae type b (DTwP-Hib) vaccine in 241 infants who were also given one of two meningococcal group C conjugate vaccines.
One month after the third dose, the researchers found that 93.2 percent of the Pediacel group achieved anti-polyribosylribitol phosphate titers greater than 0.15 μg/mL compared with 100 percent of the DTwP-Hib group. When either Pediacel or DTwP-Hib was given with a meningococcal group C conjugate vaccine that used diphtheria-derived protein CRM197 as conjugate protein, the anti-PRP response was lower than it was if the meningococcal vaccine used tetanus toxoid as conjugate protein.
"Pediacel contains five-component acellular pertussis, which is as effective as whole-cell pertussis in protecting against pertussis disease (in schedules of 2, 4 and 6, or 3, 5 and 12 months) and is also considerably better tolerated," the authors conclude.
The study was funded by Sanofi Pasteur MSD, and several authors are employees of the company.
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