News in brief - Oct. 10, 2011

Vaccine decreases diarrhea-related doctor visits, hospitalizations - Listeriosis outbreak tied to Colorado cantaloupes

Vaccine decreases diarrhea-related doctor visits, hospitalizations

Vaccinating infants against rotavirus has resulted in dramatic decreases in health care use and treatment costs for diarrhea-related illness in the United States, says a study in the Sept. 22 New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers used data from a large U.S. insurance database to examine rotavirus vaccination rates between 2001 and 2009 among children 5 and younger. They also estimated national reductions in the number of hospitalizations for diarrhea.

They found that by Dec. 31, 2008, 73% of children younger than 1 year had received at least one of the three recommended doses of the vaccine (www.nejm.org/doi/abstract/10.1056/nejmoa1000446). Immunized children had up to 58% fewer diarrhea-related hospitalizations than unvaccinated children between January 2008 and June 2009, the study shows.

Researchers estimated that the rotavirus vaccine prevented 64,855 hospitalizations and saved about $278 million in treatment costs between 2007 and 2009.

Listeriosis outbreak tied to Colorado cantaloupes

More than 80 people have been infected with one of the four strains of Listeria monocytogenes that have been reported in 19 states between Aug. 28 and Sept. 30. Cantaloupe consumption was strongly associated with illness caused by the outbreak strains, says a report issued Sept. 30 in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Eighty-eight percent of the infected individuals were 60 and older, and there have been as many as 15 deaths due to the disease (www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm60e0930a1.htm). Most at risk of having complications from the illness are older adults, people with weakened immune systems and pregnant women, the CDC said.

The outbreak has had the highest number of deaths of any food-borne outbreak in the United States since a listeriosis outbreak in 1998, according to the report. The CDC recommends that people not eat cantaloupes from Jensen Farms of Holly, Colo.