Vaccine protection of Swedish children. Time for revision of replacing doses of diphtheria, tetanus, polio and pertussis

The Swedish vaccination programme against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio and Haemophilus influenzae type b is characterized by few, widely spaced doses. Swedish schoolchildren have low diphtheria antibody levels compared to children in other countries. The introduction of acellular pertussis vaccine in 1996 has markedly cut the pertussis incidence in all ages except school-age children. There are now reasons to consider replacing the present fourth dose of inactivated polio vaccine given at 5 years of age and the diphtheria-tetanus toxoids given at 10 years of age with a combined diphtheria-tetanus-polio-acellular pertussis vaccine dose to be given at 5-6 years of age. A fifth dose of a DTPaPolio vaccine should be considered at 15-18 years of age.