Vaccination contre les VPH, dépistage du cancer du col utérin et sexualité : connaissances, croyances et comportements des femmes québécoises

L'infection par les VPH est la plus fréquente des infections transmissibles sexuellement et est associée au cancer du col utérin. Un programme de vaccination contre les VPH a été implanté au Québec à l'automne 2008. Cette étude visait à décrire les connaissances et les croyances des résidentes du Québec sur les VPH et leur prévention ainsi que leurs comportements. Près de 1350 femmes de 24 ans ont répondu à une enquête postale. Le score moyen de connaissances était de quatre sur sept. Plus de la moitié des répondantes se disaient insatisfaites des informations reçues sur les VPH. Seulement 5% des participantes avaient reçu le vaccin contre les VPH et 82 % avaient initié le dépistage. Cette étude a permis d'obtenir des données de base auprès d'un échantillon représentatif dans le cadre de l'évaluation du programme de vaccination. Une meilleure transmission d'informations aux femmes sur les VPH semble à renforcer

Impact de l'ajout de nouveaux vaccins, des retards vaccinaux et des méthodes de collecte de l'information vaccinale sur l'estimation de la couverture vaccinale à 24 mois.

L’impact des programmes de vaccination repose, en partie, sur la proportion des personnes ciblées qui reçoivent les vaccins recommandés, soit la couverture vaccinale. Au Québec dans les dix dernières années, le programme de vaccination chez les enfants avant l’âge de 24 mois a subi plusieurs changements, qui peuvent avoir eu un impact sur les couvertures vaccinales et les retards vaccinaux. Un retard vaccinal à une visite influence l’administration à temps des doses subséquentes. Plusieurs études ont documenté l’impact d’un retard à la première visite sur le statut vaccinal, mais l’impact des retards aux autres visites a été peu décrit. Depuis 2006, des enquêtes postales sont réalisées à tous les deux ans auprès d’enfants de 1 an et 2 ans afin d’évaluer la couverture vaccinale. Ces enquêtes prévoient jusqu’à 4 contacts auprès des participants potentiels pour maximiser la participation ainsi qu’une validation auprès des vaccinateurs des données vaccinales obtenues avec le carnet pour les enfants avec un statut vaccinal incomplet. Nous avons utilisé les données des enquêtes de 2006 à 2016 afin d’évaluer l’impact de l’ajout de nouveaux vaccins, des retards vaccinaux et des méthodes de collecte de l’information vaccinale sur l’estimation de la couverture vaccinale. Les analyses ont été réalisées auprès de 7183 enfants nés au Québec, dont 3508 enfants de la cohorte 2 ans. Nous avons observé que la couverture vaccinale à 24 mois pour les antigènes présents au calendrier depuis 2006 n’a pas diminué avec l’ajout des nouveaux antigènes et qu’elle a même augmenté pour les enquêtes réalisées en 2014 et 2016. En 2016, la couverture vaccinale à l’âge de 24 mois pour les antigènes déjà au programme était de 88,3 % et de 78,2 % lorsque tous les antigènes étaient considérés. La couverture vaccinale pour les nouveaux antigènes augmentait progressivement après leur introduction, mais demeurait inférieure à celle pour les antigènes déjà au programme. Nous avons également observé que la prévalence des retards vaccinaux augmentait selon les visites prévues à 2, 4, 6 et 12 mois et que l’impact des retards vaccinaux sur le statut vaccinal à l’âge de 24 mois était important pour les visites de vaccination après celle de 2 mois. Parmi les enfants avec un statut vaccinal incomplet à 24 mois, 16,1 % étaient attribuables à un retard à 2 mois, 10,6 % à un retard à 4 mois, 14,0 % à un retard à 6 mois et 31,8 % à un retard à 12 mois. Toutefois, environ les trois quarts des enfants qui présentaient un retard à la visite de 2 mois avaient un retard à une visite subséquente. Des facteurs associés à un statut vaccinal incomplet à 24 mois et à la présence de retards vaccinaux ont été identifiés afin de définir les populations les plus vulnérables qui pourraient bénéficier d’un suivi particulier. En se basant seulement sur les données du carnet, la couverture vaccinale aurait été sous-estimée de 5,5 % à 23,7 % dépendamment de l’année de l’enquête. Nous avons aussi comparé la couverture vaccinale à 24 mois entre les répondants à chacune des 4 étapes de la collecte des données. La proportion d’enfants complètement vaccinés était significativement plus élevée de 7,8 % chez les enfants des parents ayant répondu au 1er contact comparativement à ceux ayant répondu au 3e contact, mais seulement 2,1 % plus élevée que celle estimée parmi tous les répondants. L’ajout de répondants à chacune des étapes a permis d’augmenter le taux de réponse de l’enquête, mais a eu un impact limité sur la validité des estimés. Pour terminer, les enquêtes de couverture vaccinale sont essentielles pour évaluer la pénétration des programmes de vaccination et leur évolution dans le temps. L’évaluation des retards vaccinaux permet d’avoir un meilleur portrait de la vulnérabilité de la population. Il faudrait également considérer les autres visites dans la planification des interventions visant à réduire les délais dans l’administration des vaccins en plus de la visite de 2 mois. La validation des données de vaccination auprès d’autres sources doit être poursuivie afin de limiter la possibilité d’un biais d’information, mais peut être restreinte aux enfants avec un statut incomplet. Afin de mieux évaluer les bénéfices de réaliser plusieurs tentatives de contacts, il serait utile que les enquêtes de couverture vaccinales similaires à celle réalisée dans le cadre de ce projet présentent la couverture vaccinale estimée auprès des répondants à chacune des étapes.The impact of vaccination programs depends upon the proportion of the target population who have received the recommended vaccines, i.e. vaccination coverage. In Quebec (Canada), during the last ten years, many new vaccines were added in the vaccination schedule for children under 24 months of age and this may have decreased the vaccination coverage and increased vaccine delays. Vaccine delay at one visit had an impact of on-time administration of subsequent doses. Many studies had shown that vaccine delays at first vaccines on the vaccination status, but there are scarce data regarding the impact of vaccine delays at other visits. Since 2006, vaccination coverage surveys are conducted every two years among children aged 1 and 2 years of age. These studies included up to four attemps to contact eligible individuals and data from vaccine booklets were supplemented by data from vaccine providers for children with missing doses. We used data collected from 2006 to 2016 to evaluate the impact of the addition of new vaccines in the early childhood schedule, the impact of vaccine delays and the impact of methods used to collect vaccination information. Analyses were realised with the 7183 children born in Québec; including 3508 children from the 2-year cohort. We observed that vaccination coverage by 24 months did not decrease with the addition of new vaccines for antigens included in the schedule since 2006 and was in fact higher in 2014 and 2016. In 2016, vaccination coverage for antigens in the schedule since 2006 was of 88.3% and of 78.2% including all recommended antigens. The vaccination coverage for new antigens increased rapidly after their introduction but remained lower than vaccination coverage for antigens in the schedule since 2006. We observed that the prevalence of vaccine delays increased by vaccination visits at 2, 4, 6 and 12 months and that the impact of vaccine delays on incomplete vaccination status by 24 months was important for delays after the 2-month visit. Among children with an incomplete vaccination status by 24 months, 16.1% were attributable with a first vaccine delay (2 mois), 10.6% at 4 months, 14.0% at 6 months and 31.8% at 12 months. However, about 75% of children with a vaccine delay at 2 months also had vaccine delays at later visits. Factors associated with an incomplete vaccination status by 24 months and with vaccine delays were assessed to identify more vulnerable populations who may required a particular follow-up. Without validation among vaccine providers in our study, the vaccination coverage by 24 months would have been underestimated from 5.5% to 23.7 depending on the survey year. We have compared vaccination coverage by 24 months between each contacts among potential respondents. We observed that the proportion fully vaccinated by 24 months of age was significantly 7.8% higher in children whose parents responded to the first rather than the third contact, but it was only 2.1% higher when comparing respondents to contact 1 and all respondents. Conducting multiple contact attempts increased the overall response rate, but had limited impact on the validity of estimates. To conclude, vaccination coverage studies are essential to evaluate the impact of vaccination programs and trends over the years. Monitoring of vaccine delays provide more information regarding the susceptibility of the population. Intervention to improve timeliness should address delays at each visit and not only focus on the first visit. In addition, validation of vaccination data among other sources is necessary to limit the presence of information bias in vaccination coverage studies, but may be restricted to children incompletely vaccinated. To better evaluate the benefit of multiple contacts it would be useful for future similar vaccination surveys to present the coverage obtained from respondants to each contact

Feasibility and impact of providing feedback to vaccinating medical clinics: evaluating a public health intervention

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Vaccine coverage (VC) at a given age is a widely-used indicator for measuring the performance of vaccination programs. However, there is increasing data suggesting that measuring delays in administering vaccines complements the measure of VC. Providing feedback to vaccinators is recognized as an effective strategy for improving vaccine coverage, but its implementation has not been widely documented in Canada. The objective of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of providing personalized feedback to vaccinators and its impact on vaccination delays (VD).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In April and May 2008, a one-hour personalized feedback session was provided to health professionals in vaccinating medical clinics in the Quebec City region. VD for vaccines administered at two and twelve months of age were presented. Data from the regional vaccination registry were analysed for participating clinics. Two 12-month periods before and after the intervention were compared, namely from April 1^st, 2007 to March 31^st, 2008 and from June 1^st, 2008 to May 31^st, 2009.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Ten medical clinics out of the twelve approached (83%), representing more than 2500 vaccinated children, participated in the project. Preparing and conducting the feedback involved 20 hours of work and expenses of $1000 per clinic. Based on a delay of one month, 94% of first doses of DTaP-Polio-Hib and 77% of meningococcal vaccine doses respected the vaccination schedule both before and after the intervention. Following the feedback, respect of the vaccination schedule increased for vaccines planned at 12 months for the four clinics that had modified their vaccination practices related to multiple injections (depending on the clinic, VD decreased by 24.4%, 32.0%, 40.2% and 44.6% respectively, p < 0.001 for all comparisons).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The present study shows that it is feasible to provide personalized feedback to vaccinating clinics. While it may have encouraged positive changes in practice concerning multiple injections, this intervention on its own did not impact vaccination delays of the clinics visited. It is possible that feedback integrated into other types of effective interventions and sustained over time may have more impact on VD.</p

Delayed measles vaccination of toddlers in Canada: Associated socio-demographic factors and parental knowledge, attitudes and beliefs

Delaying vaccination increases the period of vulnerability of children against vaccine-preventable diseases. We used a nationally representative sample of Canadian two-year-old children to explore factors associated with delays in the uptake of the first dose of measles-containing vaccine, recommended in Canada for children at 12 months of age. Distribution of delays was determined using data from the 2013 Childhood National Immunization Coverage Survey. Logistic regression was used to examine sociodemographic factors and knowledge, attitudes and beliefs (KAB) associated with the two outcomes of interest: delays of one to six months (vaccination at 13 to 18 months of age) and delays of seven to 18 months (vaccination at 19 to 23 months of age). Overall, 69% (95% confidence interval [CI] 67–71) of children received their first valid dose on time. Twenty-nine percent (95% CI 27–31) and 11% (95% CI 9–12) of children were unvaccinated before turning 13 and 16 months of age, respectively. Factors associated with delays of one to six months were being a girl, being born outside Canada, and the jurisdiction of residence. Being from a single-parent family, being born outside Canada and the jurisdiction of residence were associated with delays of seven to 18 months, suggesting that potential barriers might be at play. Associations between KAB and vaccination delays indicate that vaccine hesitancy could contribute to measles vaccination delays in Canada. Barriers in accessing vaccination services and the role of vaccine hesitancy in timely vaccination must be better understood to reduce vaccination delays in toddlers in Canada

Participation in an action research project on vaccine services for children: relationship with vaccine delays

Multicomponent interventions are effective in improving vaccine coverage. However, few studies have assessed their effect on timely vaccination. The aim of this study was to compare the proportion of children with vaccine delays at 2- and 12-month visits according to whether or not health centers have participated in an action research project on the organization of vaccination services for 0-5-year-olds. The action research project included a multicomponent intervention and was conducted between 2011 and 2015 in Quebec, Canada. An ecological before/after design was used for this analysis. A total of 264,579 DTaP-IPV-Hib (2-month visits) and 240,541 Men-C-C (12-month visits) vaccine doses were administered during 2011–2012 to 2014–2015 fiscal years, including 19% in 14 participating health centers and the remaining in 78 nonparticipating centers. Vaccine delays demonstrated a more pronounced decreasing trend in participating versus nonparticipating health centers (p < .0001 at 2 and 12 months). Between 2011–2012 and 2014–2015, participating centers managed to eliminate 35% of their vaccine delays at 2-month visits and 33% at 12-month visits, whereas nonparticipating centers eliminated 19% of delays at both visits. Our results are consistent with a positive impact of the multicomponent intervention, despite the fact that it had not specifically aimed at decreasing vaccine delays

Impact of vaccine delays at the 2, 4, 6 and 12 month visits on incomplete vaccination status by 24 months of age in Quebec, Canada

Abstract Background Timeliness in the administration of recommended vaccines is often evaluated using vaccine delays and provides more information regarding the susceptibility of children to vaccine-preventable diseases compared with vaccine coverage at a given age. The importance of on-time administration of vaccines scheduled at the first visit is well documented, but data are scarce about the impact of vaccine delays at other visits on vaccination status by 24 months of age. Using vaccine delays for the first three doses of DTaP-containing vaccines and for the first dose of measles-containing vaccines as markers of timeliness at the 2, 4, 6 and 12 month visits, we estimated the proportion of incomplete vaccination status by 24 months of age attributable to a vaccine delay at each of these visits. Methods We used the data from six cross-sectional coverage surveys conducted in the Province of Quebec from 2006 to 2016 which included 7183 children randomly selected from the universal health insurance database. A vaccine dose was considered delayed if received 30 days or more after the recommended age. The impact of new vaccine delays at each visit on incomplete vaccination status by 24 months of age was estimated with the attributable risk in the population. Results The proportion of children with vaccine delay was 5.4% at 2 months, 13.3% at 4 months, 23.1% at 6 months and 23.6% at 12 months. Overall, 72.5% of all 2-year-old children with an incomplete status by 24 months were attributable with a vaccine delay, of which 16.1% were attributable with a first vaccine delay at 2 months, 10.6% at 4 months, 14.0% at 6 months and 31.8% at 12 months. Conclusions While great emphasis has been put on vaccine delays at the first vaccination visit, the prevalence of vaccine delays was greater with later visits and most children with an incomplete vaccination status by 24 months had a vaccine delay occurring during these later visits. Interventions to improve timeliness should address vaccine delays at each visit and not only focus on the first visit

Sexual behavior, clinical outcomes and attendance of cervical cancer screening by HPV vaccinated and unvaccinated sexually active women

Concerns were raised about HPV vaccination possibly leading to riskier sexual behavior. We assessed sexual behaviors, risk of sexually transmitted infection, and attendance to cervical cancer screening by HPV vaccinated and unvaccinated young women. In this analysis, 1475 questionnaires completed by women aged 17–29 years were included. The majority of respondents (67.9%) were vaccinated against HPV. The proportion of those vaccinated decreased with age: from 93.2% in those aged 17–19 to 72.9% in those aged 20–22, and 21.8% in 23–29-year olds. A higher proportion of unvaccinated respondents had at least one sexual intercourse under the age of 15 when compared to those vaccinated (30% vs. 23%, p < .0001). The number of sexual partners during the last 12 months was similar between vaccinated and unvaccinated participants. Vaccinated participants reported more condom use (45% versus 38%; p = .0002), and less sexually transmitted infections (10% versus 28%; p < .0001), and less anogenital condylomas (2.2% vs. 11.6%; p < .0001). A screening test has been reported by 51% and 77% of vaccinated and unvaccinated participants, respectively (p < .0001). The association between vaccination status and cervical cancer screening disappeared when adjusting for participants’ age. The study results consolidate the existing body of data regarding the absence of an impact of HPV vaccination on sexual behavior or use of contraceptives

Soto J &amp; al_2021_SARS-CoV-2_ECCC

Background: Following an outbreak in April 2020 in Quebec, Canada, an investigation was carried out to characterize SARS-CoV-2 transmission within an Emergency Childcare Centre (ECCC) setting. Methods: The study population consisted of all the children and employees who attended the ECCC as well as household contacts of the confirmed COVID-19 cases. Of the 120 individuals in the study, five cases were confirmed by epidemiological link and 25 were identified as COVID-19 by RT-PCR among which 19 were analysed by viral whole genome sequencing. Descriptive epidemiology, social network visualization, and phylogenetic analysis were used. The study period was April 9 to May 18, 2020. Findings: Phylogenetic analysis identified two separate introductions of distinct lineages of SARS-CoV-2 and estimated an average reproductive value of R = 1.9 (range 0.9 - 4.9) with a mean doubling time of 3.2 days (range 2.1 - 5.2). The first and most prevalent lineage was introduced by two asymptomatic children who were likely infected by their parent, a confirmed COVID-19 case working in a long-term care centre. Among infected household adults, attack rates were significantly higher in mothers than fathers (risk ratio = 4.5; 95% CI= 1.1-18.7). The extent of transmission makes it one of the largest documented outbreaks in a daycare in Canada. Interpretation: The analyses carried out showed the probable origin and direction of the transmission of the infection (adult-child, child-adult, and child-child), thus highlighting how asymptomatic children can efficiently transmit SARS-CoV-2

COVID-19 pandemic impact on childhood vaccination coverage in Quebec, Canada

Response measures to mitigate the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic impacted access to routine vaccination services. We evaluate the impact of the pandemic on routine infant vaccination uptake by comparing vaccination coverage, vaccine delays and doses administered in 2019 and 2020, in Quebec, Canada. Using a population-based vaccination registry, we compared vaccination coverage at 3, 5, 13 and 19 months of age between 2019 and 2020 cohorts each month from January to November. For vaccine delays, we measured the cumulative proportion vaccinated in each targeted cohort monthly. We also compared the measles-containing vaccines administered before 24 months of age between the same period in 2019 and 2020. A decline in vaccination coverage and children vaccinated on time was observed in all cohorts during the first months of the pandemic. The greatest impact was observed for the 18-month vaccination visit with a difference in vaccination coverage between both cohorts of 30.9% in May. Measles-containing doses administered during the first months of the pandemic were lower in 2020 compared with 2019: −21.1% in March (95%CI-21.6;-20.4), and −39.2% in April (95%CI-40.0;-38.2). After May, the coverage increased for all cohorts to reach pre-pandemic levels after a few months for most target ages. Routine childhood vaccinations were affected during the first months of the pandemic, but catch-up occurred thereafter and vaccination coverage in affected cohorts were very close to levels of 2019 after a few months of follow-up. Real-time monitoring of childhood vaccination is essential but also for other vaccination programs, severely affected by the pandemic