Implementation and adherence of routine pertussis vaccination (DTP) in a low-resource urban birth cohort

Introduction: Reliable information on rates of up-to-date coverage and timely administration of routine childhood immunizations is critical for guiding public health efforts worldwide, yet prospective observation of vaccination programs within individual communities is rare. Here we provide a longitudinal analysis of the directly-observed administration of a 3-dose primary vaccination series to infants in a low-resource community in Lusaka, Zambia.

Methods: Throughout 2015, we recruited a longitudinal birth cohort of mother/infant pairs (initial enrollment, 1,981 pairs; attending, 1,497 pairs) from the peri-urban informal settlement of Chawama compound, located in Lusaka, Zambia. We prospectively monitored the administration of scheduled Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis (DTP) vaccinations across the first 14-18 weeks of life. We analyzed study attendance and vaccine coverage, both overall and stratified by age group. We employed Kaplan-Meier analyses to estimate delays in age-appropriate...