Vaccination status of children with sickle cell disease in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)

Because of the importance of preventive activities in fighting sickle cell disease, we sought to assess the vaccination status of children with this disease in Burkina-Faso. This cross-sectional study used a questionnaire to collect information from outpatients of the pédiatrie department of the Yalgado Ouédraogo hospital center and of Saint Camille medical center, also in Ouagadougou, from October 2005 through March 2006. The study included 122 children, 52.5% of whom had an SC phenotype. Coverage for vaccinations included in the WHO expanded vaccination programme was 97.5%. For other specific vaccines, coverage varied from 5.7% for the anti-Haemophilus influenzae vaccine to 65.8% for the 23 pneumococci included in pneumo23. The major reasons for non-vaccination were ignorance and the prohibitive cost of these vaccines for the families who knew about them. These results suggest the need for a national program against sickle cell disease, which should enable treatment centers to include in their preventive activities a specific vaccination program. Only in this way can we reduce the mortality rates among those younger than 5 years by 40% by 2015, the goal of the International Organization against sickle cell disease, to which Burkina-Faso belongs.