CHILDREN OF A MINOR GOD: WHAT HAS CHANGED?

Key words: Heptavalent pneumococcal vaccine, Meningococcal vaccine, Chickenpox vaccine, Measles-rubella-mumps vaccine, Measles epidemy, Meningitidis

Several “new” vaccines are available nowadays and many other are getting ready. Vaccines are important health tools with a mainly high technological level and have a positive result on the individual protection against a lot of diseases. However, the Public Health level imposes a careful evaluation of the “population” effects which may come from an extensive use of these vaccines or from an interference with vaccination programmes of priority importance. In the region of Puglia (Italy), which adopted active and free heptavalent pneumococcal, meningococcal and chickenpox vaccines for all the new-borns, the cover rates for measles, rubella and mumps vaccines are still insufficient, even if the extraordinary vaccination campaign has been adopted after the measles epidemy in 2002-2003. Therefore, an underlying contradiction is going on: alongside the largest public proposal ever made by an Italian region in the “new” vaccine field, there is still the risk that disastrous epidemic events arising from “old” diseases recur.