Social contact patterns of infants in deciding vaccination strategy: a prospective, cross-sectional, single-centre study.

Social contact between individuals is believed to be a fundamental cause in the transmission of many respiratory tract infections. Because they have not yet been fully vaccinated, infants are at high risk for contracting whooping cough, influenza and their serious complications. Therefore, determining infant social contact patterns is an important step in protecting them from respiratory tract infection. This study included 1200 healthy infants (<12 months of age). Social contact diaries were used to estimate the frequency and nature of the infants' social contacts. This survey also gathered information regarding the infants' respiratory symptoms and their frequency of attendance at crowded places over a period of 1 week. The diary return rate was 83.8% (N = 1006), and there was a total of 4706 contacts reported for these infants. The median daily contact number per capita was 4 (range 1-18). The median number of contacts with adolescents was 0 (range 0-7). Of the infants, 50.3% had contact with non-household individuals. The mothers had the longest contacts with their babies. Contacts with school children, frequency of attendance at crowded places and age were determined to be significant effective factors for reporting respiratory symptoms. Results suggest that school-age siblings and the mothers should be primarily vaccinated, and parents should keep their babies away from crowded places for protecting their infants.

Body mass index percentile curves for predominantly breastfed children aged 0-2 years from Ankara, Turkey.

OBJECTIVE: The percentiles of weight, height and body mass index (BMI) change markedly from one country to another and also from one city to another, particularly in childhood. The aim of the present study is to construct BMI percentile curves for predominantly breastfed Turkish children aged 0-2 years from Ankara, Turkey. METHODS: The study population consisted of healthy boys and girls aged 0-2 years from the middle-high socioeconomic status between 2002 and 2004 in well child clinic of Gazi University School of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey. The BMI values for boys and girls were calculated from the height and weight measurements, and BMI percentile values and curves were obtained separately for boys and girls by the LMS method. RESULTS: The current findings indicate that the BMI percentile values for boys are higher than those for girls in general. The estimated curves for BMI showed that there was a constant increase in BMI values towards 7th or 8th month and a slight decrease until 24th month in both boys and girls. CONCLUSIONS: The current study presents percentile curves for BMI values in predominantly breastfed Turkish children aged 0 to 2 years living in Ankara, Turkey. To our knowledge, this is the first study considering BMI percentiles for predominantly breastfed Turkish children aged 0-2 years. However, WHO multicenter growth reference study curves can be used until constructing multicenter BMI reference curves representing Turkey (Fig. 2, Tab. 3, Ref. 19).

Evaluation of perinatal and intrafamilial hepatitis B prevention programmes in a well child clinic: 9-year follow-up study in Turkey.

Evaluating the performance of well child clinics on adherence to recommended perinatal hepatitis B prevention programmes as well as assessing the outcome of infants living with hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-positive parents is important. A retrospective study was performed of 336 babies who had at least one HBsAg-positive parent and were followed-up in the well child clinic of Gazi University Hospital (Ankara, Turkey) between 2001 and 2009. Rates of passive immunisation in 109 babies with HBsAg-positive mothers and initiation of hepatitis B vaccination of all 336 babies with HBsAg-positive parents were 98.8% and 100% respectively. Ninety-two babies (27.4%) were lost to follow-up before completing primary immunisation. The recommended perinatal hepatitis B prevention programme was performed successfully in 194 of the 306 infants who were old enough for post-vaccination serotesting (63.4%). One baby became HBsAg-positive, and 88.1% of babies were seroprotected. Hepatitis B surface antibody (anti-HBs) levels were found to be increased if the HBsAg-positive parent was the father. There was a negative correlation between serotesting time and anti-HBs titres. The study infants had a total of 187 siblings and 123 (65.8%) were serotested after completing primary immunisation with 108 found to be seropositive. Although the vaccination rate in the perinatal hepatitis B prevention programme is satisfactory, post-vaccination serotesting and evaluation of infants and their siblings are still deficient.

Immunogenicity of recombinant hepatitis B vaccine: comparison of two different vaccination schedules.

BACKGROUND: Neonatal immunization with hepatitis B (HB) vaccine induces protective levels of antibody (anti-HBs > or =10 IU/L) in a majority of vaccines. However, the duration of protection after HB vaccination in infants is unknown. A smaller proportion of children vaccinated beginning at birth with three doses of HB vaccine were found to have protective titers 5-10 years after initial vaccination. Long-term efficacy of HB vaccine depends mainly on peak antibody levels after vaccination, and subjects were observed to have lower levels of antibodies if they received the first dose of vaccine immediately after birth. The aim of our study was to compare the immunogenicity of two different HB vaccine schedules in infants born to HB surface antigen-negative mothers. METHODS: Anti-HBs titers in infants vaccinated with two different schedules were compared. Infants were vaccinated at 0, 2, and 9 months (group 1) or at 2, 4, and 9 months (group 2). In total, 267 blood samples were analyzed at a mean of 14.20 +/- 2.39 months after the third vaccine dose. Sera were tested for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), hepatitis B surface antibody (anti-HBs), and hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc) using commercial enzyme immunoassay kits. RESULTS: The geometric mean titers for anti-HBs were 95.00 and 379.51 IU/L and the rates of anti-HBs more than > or =100 IU/L were 57.7 and 94.9% in group 1 and 2 infants, respectively. CONCLUSION: Delaying the first dose of the HB vaccine until 2 months after birth produces a higher immune response and can provide longer term protection.

Toilet training in Turkey: the factors that affect timing and duration in different sociocultural groups.

BACKGROUND: The aim of the present study was to determine the patterns of toilet training and the factors that may be related to its timing and duration and the approaches of different sociocultural groups within a developing country. METHODS: This cross-sectional survey was performed on 745 children who live in three different sociocultural settlements. The factors that might have affected initiation and completion age and duration of toilet training were assessed with t-test, ANOVA and logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: Mean initiation and completion ages were 22.05 +/- 6.73, 28.05 +/- 8.40 months respectively. The families living in rural and semi-urban settlements, mothers educated for less than 5 years, unoccupied mothers, children living in houses which do not have a toilet inside, families who use washable diapers, who use Turkish style toilets and who use punishment methods started training earlier. In the infants whose mothers had an education over 12 years, completion age was later than others and the earliest completion age was seen in families who used punishment method. Mean duration needed to complete toilet training was 6.84 +/- 7.16 months. The duration of training was longer in families living in rural and semi-urban settlements, mothers educated for less than 5 years, unoccupied mothers, children living in houses which do not have a toilet inside, families who use washable diapers and when the initiation was before the child was 18 months old. CONCLUSION: Toilet training shows differences among cultures. The age of initiation may be increased as the parents are educated better and a child-orientated approach becomes more popular than the parent-orientated approach.