[Effect of High Council for Public Health on September 28th 2012 recommendation about antipapillomavirus vaccination on antipapillomavirus and trivalent or tetravalent DTP or DTCP co-vaccination in South Western France].

INTRODUCTION: Antipapillomavirus vaccination is used to prevent genital infection by papilloma virus, responsible for a high morbidity. In France, the High Council for Public Health published on September 28th 2012 a new guideline decreasing the age of vaccination from 16 to between 11 to 14 allowing a joint vaccination with mandatory tetravalent or trivalent (against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and poliomyelitis Tdap-IPV or Td/IPV booster) vaccination. Our study aimed to assess if this guideline changed the rate of joint vaccinations.

METHODS: A descriptive before/after study was conducted on French health insurance reimbursement database at the regional level (Midi-Pyrénées area). The study period comprised 1 year before and 1 year after the publication of the new guideline. We assess the rate of co-vaccinations in these 2 periods and compared them by a Chi2 test.

RESULTS: On the study period, 35,647 vaccines were reimbursed corresponding to 18,230 complete vaccinations. Concerning co-vaccinations, 3287 were reimbursed: 1406 (16.4%) before the publication of the guideline and 1881 (19.4%) after (P<0.01).

DISCUSSION: The new guideline was accompanied by a rapid increase in the rate of co-vaccinations. It did not diminish the rate of vaccination by antipapillomavirus.