Vaccination coverage and morbidity for influenza, measles and pertussis from 1999 to 2003 in the Italian province of Messina

Once the tremendous importance of vaccination among public health interventions is unanimously acknowledged, it becomes essential that the adequacy, efficacy and efficiency of these immunization programs be systematically assessed. Vaccination coverage, in fact, represents one of the main indicators for assessing the strategies undertaken in the field of public health, together with the trend in the incidence of preventable diseases. This is all the more so in relation to the recent directives issued by the Ministry of Health on the vaccination coverage for some preventable infectious diseases, directives also issued with reference to the strategies initiated by the World Health Organization at both the European and global level. On the basis of this situation we carried out a study to evaluate the vaccination coverage for measles, pertussis and influenza in the population of the city and province of Messina from 1999 to 2003, by examining the relative morbidity data during the same period. We analysed the data extrapolated from both the vaccination registers and the disease notification registers available to the Local Health Agency 5 of Messina, together with the main diagnostic cards (DRG), from the hospitals and hospital services present on the territory falling within the competence of the LHA. The overall analysis of the data shows in a very significant manner that the notification of these diseases is mostly disregarded by the hospitals, right down to being entirely disregarded in case of influenzal diseases, and that the vaccination coverage for measles presents, for reasons requiring further investigation, a declining trend during the last two years.