Healthy Habits: Leading cancer centers issue joint statement calling for adolescent vaccines for HPV, COVID and others

Heather Brandt, Ph.D., director of the HPV Cancer Prevention Program at St. Jude is coordinator for today’s joint statement signed by 15 leading academic and freestanding cancer centers with membership in the Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI), all National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers—among them 70 AACI members—and other organizations urging the nation’s health care systems, physicians, parents, children and young adults to get the nation “back on track with adolescent vaccination to ensure protected children and safer communities”

Dramatic drops in annual well-child visits and immunizations during the COVID-19 pandemic have caused a significant vaccination gap and lag in vital preventive services among U.S. children and adolescents. Vaccinations for COVID-19 and other recommended vaccines for adolescents 12 and older can safely happen at the same time.

You can read the full press release on the joint statement, here.

Parents should know that recommended vaccinations may be administered at the same time as the COVID-19 vaccination for children 12 and older.

The joint statement urges the following actions as children head back to school:

• Health care systems’ staff and providers should immediately identify and contact parents of adolescents who are due for vaccinations and encourage them to complete vaccinations.
• Parents should have their adolescent children vaccinated as soon as possible. A list of recommended vaccines is available on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website.
• COVID-19 vaccines and recommended vaccines may be administered at the same visit. Protecting your child from COVID-19 by getting them vaccinated is an easy opportunity to catch up on other recommended vaccines like the HPV vaccine.

“Disparities in adherence to recommended vaccinations remain a major concern because not all children have experienced the pandemic in the same ways,” said Dr. Brandt.

The pandemic has caused a gap in all vaccinations, including HPV, and especially for adolescents, according to the CDC. As of August 2021, recommended vaccinations for adolescents remain in greater deficit as compared to those for younger children:
Whooping cough (Tdap) – down 16.7%
HPV cancer prevention – down 18.4%
Meningitis (Meningococcal conjugate) – down 13.7%

You can learn more in this interview.

Why has Covid contributed to missing vaccines for children and adolescents?

 

The pandemic brought about safety concerns when seeking health care, especially for preventive and non-urgent services. Parents/caregivers cancelled or delayed well child visits during the pandemic since children were kept at home or because parents/caregivers had other competing priorities. These are the visits at which vaccinations are most commonly given. Health care providers, however, began modifying care delivery to maximize safety, including parking lot visits that could include vaccinations. Overall, it is important to note, the pandemic has heightened and exacerbated challenges that existed prior to the pandemic when it comes to access to health care. With other competing demands on time and resources, prevention was pushed down the list.

 

Why is it important for parents to be aware of all vaccines available, Covid and others?

 

Vaccinations keep individuals, families, and communities safe and protected against vaccine-preventable diseases.

 

What do you say to patients who are concerned about "stacking" vaccines together to catch up, or about some of the vaccines, include Covid and HPV, that are newer to the vaccination recommendations?

 

The 14-day waiting period before and after administration of a COVID-19 vaccination was put in place out of an abundance of caution. Additional data have now been collected and reviewed – and continue to be – showing COVID-19 vaccinations are safe and can be co-administered with other routinely recommended vaccinations. The CDC has released guidelines for health care providers when co-administering COVID-19 vaccines and other recommended vaccines.

                CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/clinical-considerations/covid-19-vaccines-us.html#Coadministration

 

HPV vaccination has been routinely recommended in the U.S. since 2006 for females and 2011 for males. We have extensive data on the safety and effectiveness of HPV vaccination to prevent disease. HPV vaccination is routinely administered with whooping cough (Tdap) and meningitis (meningococcal conjugate) vaccines to 11-12 year old children, per the CDC recommendation for the age group.

 

Data will continue to be collected to monitor administration of COVID-19 vaccines and COVID-19 vaccines co-administered with other recommended vaccines.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is leading the way the world understands, treats and cures childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. It is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children. St. Jude is ranked the No. 1 pediatric cancer hospital by U.S. News & World Report. Treatments developed at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20 percent to 80 percent since the hospital opened more than 50 years ago. St. Jude freely shares the breakthroughs it makes, and every child saved at St. Jude means doctors and scientists worldwide can use that knowledge to save thousands more children. Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing and food — because all a family should worry about is helping their child live. To learn more, visit stjude.org or follow St. Jude on social media at @stjuderesearch.