New Vaccines Recommended for Adults and Children in 2016

Urgent care practices that focus on helping patients stay up to date on immunization—such as occupational medicine and travel medicine providers, or those that cater to seniors and families with children—take note: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has made a few changes in its recommendations this year. For adults, a recently licensed meningococcal serogroup B vaccine and human papillomavirus vaccine have been added, and the recommendation for pneumococcal vaccination has been revised from receipt of the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine followed by 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine from “6 to 12 months” to “at least 1 year” for immunocompetent adults aged ≥65 years. The new recommended schedule for children and adolescents includes guidance for two recently licensed meningococcal B vaccines and the 9-valent human papillomavirus vaccine, among other updates. The full, current schedules for adults and children are available on the CDC website.