Pennsylvania Hib Outbreak

Friday March 20, 2009

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, there have been five cases of invasive Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) infections in Pennsylvania since October 2008, resulting in two deaths. This follows the small Hib outbreak in Minnesota last year, which also resulted in a death.

Although now a vaccine preventable infection, before the routine use of the Hib vaccine began in 1988, about 20,000 children had Hib infections each year, including 12,000 cases of bacterial meningitis. And about 5% of the children with Hib meningitis died.

According the AAP, all of the Pennsylvania cases involved children who were 'unvaccinated or under-vaccinated.'

Are we seeing more Hib cases now simply because more parents are refusing to vaccinate their kids because of fears over vaccine safety and autism?

That's likely part of it. The fact that everyone else was still getting vaccinated always helped protect unvaccinated children by herd immunity. A Hib vaccine shortage since December 2007 has now lowered the power of herd immunity for Hib though and is making it more likely that unvaccinated children are getting infected. This highlights the importance of keeping kids fully vaccinated.

Even with the Hib vaccine shortage, remember that your infant is supposed to complete the three dose primary series of the vaccine.

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March 25, 2009 at 4:15 pm (1) ADP says:

Your stats are wrong. Please see Penn State’s Health website.

March 25, 2009 at 5:35 pm (2) Vincent Iannelli, MD says:

There does seem to be a discrepancy between the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the AAP, which stated that ‘The Philadelphia Department of Public Health has announced that five cases of Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) invasive disease occurred in children in Pennsylvania since October 2008, resulting in two deaths. All of these cases were in unvaccinated or under-vaccinated children. One of the children, an unvaccinated 4-year-old child whose family belongs to a religious community that eschews medical care, died of bacterial meningitis due to Hib in March 2009.’

PADOH states that “In the last six months, the PADOH has received reports of Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) invasive disease in four unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated children less than five years of age in southeastern Pennsylvania. Isolates from three additional cases of Haemophilus influenzae invasive disease, also in unvaccinated children less than five years old from southeastern Pennsylvania, have not yet been serotyped. Three of these seven children died.”

Unfortunately, there is not a lot of information available from either source. The latest from the PADOH was on March 13 and a brief statement from the AAP followed a few days later.

March 26, 2009 at 4:26 pm (3) Molly says: