Does Your Child Need a Supplemental Dose of the New Prevnar 13 Vaccine?

Thursday, July 29, 2010 -

Recently, the pneumococcal vaccine (Prevnar) has been reformulated to protect against the 13 most serious types of pnuemococcal bacteria. This is an important improvement over the previous formulation which protected against only 7 types of pneumococcal bacteria. The new Prevnar vaccine (Prevnar 13) will be administered to infants in four doses, given at their 2, 4, 6 and 12 month well care appointments. Because the new Prevnar vaccine (Prevnar 13) is more comprehensive in protecting against serious pneumonia infections (as well as some ear infections), children under five years of age who have completed the 4 dose series with the previous formulation (Prevnar 7), should be given one supplemental dose of the New Prevnar vaccine (Prevnar 13).

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