Vaccines May Reduce Risk of Strokes in Children
- By BSTQ Staff
A new international study has found that vaccines may prevent the risk of strokes in children. In the study, kids who received some, few or no vaccines were nearly seven times more likely to have a stroke than kids who had all or most of their recommended shots. Leaders in the international study, titled Vascular Effects of Infection in Pediatric Stroke, interviewed the parents and guardians of 310 children who had a stroke and compared their findings with 289 children who hadn’t experienced a stroke. Kids in both groups were around 7-and-a-half or 8 years old. The study, which included 40 centers on five continents, is the largest study on pediatric stroke ever funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Pediatric strokes are rare, affecting about five out of every 100,000. About half of these strokes are caused by blood clots, the focus of the study. Several vaccine- preventable bacterial diseases such as those caused by the bacteria pneumococcus or Haemophilus influenzae type b can lead to meningitis, an inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord that also increases a child’s risk of stroke. “The exciting thing about this study is that, with vaccination, it might prevent these strokes from happening,” says neurologist M. Shazam Hussain, director of the stroke center at the Cleveland Clinic.
