Rotavirus Vaccinations Do Not Cause Significant Outbreaks in Neonatal ICUs

New research presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies confirms rotavirus vaccines do not cause significant outbreaks of the disease in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs).

These researchers concluded that vaccine-strain rotavirus transmission in the NICU was rare and without clinical consequences.

The study found that 99.3% of non-vaccinated patients exposed to vaccinated patients did not test positive for the disease. Non-vaccinated patients who contracted rotavirus had no symptoms after 14 days.

Announced on May 3, 2024, these findings are significant because many NICUs avoid vaccinating against rotavirus due to a theoretical risk of transmission, yet some infants are too old to receive the vaccine once discharged from the NICU.

According to researchers, preterm infants are at higher risk of the highly contagious but preventable virus, yet few receive the vaccine in hospital settings.

This concern is because the rotavirus vaccine contains a weakened form of the virus.

“Immunization with rotavirus vaccine has been standard practice in the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia NICU since 2007, and the safety of this practice was supported by retrospective clinical data published in Pediatrics in 2014 – however, this remains an uncommon practice in NICUs across the United States,” said Kathleen Gibbs, MD, the study’s lead neonatologist from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, in a press release.

“Our yearlong, prospective study, done in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suggests that the benefits of vaccinating NICU patients against rotavirus outweigh the risks. Inpatient vaccination allows protection of a vulnerable population against a common, preventable cause of severe diarrheal illness.”