Atlanta – The growing list of childhood vaccinations reads like an alphabet soup: Hib, HepA, HepB, IPV, PCV, MCV4, DTaP, Tdap, varicella and influenza.
Parents dragging their kids to the doctor’s office for those required school shots can expect to hear about more vaccines and, if they’re uninsured, new expenses.
Twenty years ago, it cost $75 to $100 to immunize a child with the four available vaccines.
Today, 12 are generally recommended for kids and adolescents, at a private-sector cost of about $1,250.
And the government is expected to recommend a 13th vaccine for girls – a shot that protects against cervical cancer. It costs about $360 for the three-dose series, potentially raising the per- child vaccination bill to more than $1,600.
“The good news is we can now prevent so many diseases. The bad news is it’s gotten more complicated,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, who heads immunization programs for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Although vaccinations are routinely covered by health insurance, some worry that government funding for shots for the poor and uninsured will not keep up with demand.
Another challenge: Outbreaks of mumps, whooping cough and other vaccine-preventable infections have shown that sometimes immunized people can still catch diseases. So more booster shots are needed.
Of the nearly 4,900 people who caught the mumps in a Midwestern outbreak this year, hundreds had received both recommended doses of mumps vaccine, CDC officials said.
After a new tetanus-diphtheria-pertussis vaccine came out last year, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended a dose for children when they are 11 or 12 to give them better protection into early adulthood. A bacterial meningitis vaccine also was recommended for that age group.
Both recommendations are part of an attempt to change the medical culture so that a round of vaccinations will become common for kids before middle school, and not just at birth and kindergarten age.
