October 13, 2020

It’s easier than ever this year to make your flu shot plan, including scheduling a car-side or one-on-one flu appointment online. Here is a quick look at the upcoming car-side events.

Medical Center, Meyer Garage, Level 2 | 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

  • Tuesday, October 13
  • Wednesday, October 21
  • Thursday, October 29
  • Monday, November 2
  • Tuesday, November 10

The Woodlands, Garage, Level 4 | 8 a.m. to noon

  • Sunday, October 18
  • Sunday, November 1

“I want to keep myself and those around me safe,” says Sr. Project Manager Stephanie Osborne. “The car-side event is a very convenient option for folks like me who are working from home.”

More than 5,000 employees have taken the lead in getting their flu shots over the past couple of weeks. If you are one of them, thank you for stepping up. If you haven’t yet gotten your shot, make a plan today and get it as soon as possible.

Click here to view a video of your colleagues getting their flu shots.

By getting vaccinated against the flu, you are helping to keep our patients and families, our workforce and our community safe. For a step-by-step guide to making your flu shot plan, visit texaschildrensbenefits.org/flu. On this site, you can:

View information on the new and convenient ways to receive the flu vaccine. These options include attending an on-site or car-side event at Texas Children’s; visiting the Texas Children’s Pediatrics practice where your child receives care; and getting your shot from your primary care provider or a retail pharmacy.

  • View our robust on-site event schedule, which includes multiple dates and locations across the system to better accommodate our team members’ needs.
  • Complete consent forms online in support of a touchless experience.
  • Review answers to the most frequently asked flu questions.
  • Upload proof of vaccination with a mobile device

Thank you in advance for receiving your flu vaccine and helping to protect the safety of our patients and their families, our entire workforce and the community we serve.

July 28, 2020

When Nurmeen Khokhr called her pediatrician’s office to schedule a time to come in and get the vaccinations she needed before going off to college in the fall, she was pleased to hear she didn’t have to step out of her car.

A new program called Car Side Care is being piloted at Texas Children’s Pediatrics Cypresswood in Spring and allows patients nine and older to receive vaccinations from the comfort and safety of their vehicles. All patients have to do is make an appointment, answer a few screening questions, get their temperature taken and roll up their sleeves.

“We are providing the same high-quality care in parking spaces outside our practices as we provide inside our buildings,” said Assistant Vice President Sara Montenegro. “In doing so, we are helping reduce patients’ and staff members’ potential exposure to COVID-19.”

The idea for Car Side Care followed a national drop in the number of patients coming in to get their routine vaccinations. When asked, many patients and/or their family members sited fear of being exposed to the virus as their reason for delaying their shots.

Dr. Stanley Spinner, chief medical officer and vice president of Texas Children’s Pediatrics, said he doesn’t blame people for being cautious, but emphasized the importance of routine childhood vaccines does not lessen during a pandemic. In fact, Spinner said, children should be getting them now more than ever with back to school and flu season right around the corner.

“Vaccines are arguably the most effective public health measure we have next to clean water,” Spinner said. “They are that important, and with the pandemic, they are even more so. I would hate to see a child sick with both COVID-19 and something else like the flu.”

In addition to routine vaccinations, getting kids inoculated against the flu is one of the main drivers behind Car Side Care. Prior to the pandemic, patients needing a flu vaccine often would call their pediatrician’s office, make a nurse’s appointment, and drop by and get their vaccine. That won’t work today with COVID-19 when so many extra precautions are necessary to limit exposure.

“Our offices are very cautious about safety precautions, and with that, needed creative solutions to see hundreds of children for flu vaccine and childhood immunizations quickly, without needing to come in our facilities,” Montenegro said. “Care Side Care is a perfect way to handle this and to hopefully remain on top of the upcoming flu season by vaccinating as many children as possible.”

Car Side Care was launched as a pilot at Texas Children’s Pediatrics Cypresswood and has grown across more than 15 Texas Children’s Pediatrics sites, as we work closely with our landlords to allocate parking spaces to support this program.

Each location will designate four parking spots a couple of times a week to patients wanting to come by and get their vaccines. An appointment will be necessary as well as a COVID-19 screening. Patients and anyone else in the vehicle will be required to wear a mask. Clinicians will wear a mask, goggles and a protective gown. The program has also been expanded from caring for older children to caring fo children of any age over the past two months.

“Texas Children’s Pediatrics has done a very good job at continually finding ways to provide the care our kids need in the safest possible environment,” Spinner said. “Our families seem very happy with the modifications we’ve made thus far and they seem pleased with our commitment to maintain the quality of care we’ve always provided.”

Khokhr said she was very pleased with her Car Side Care experience. It was convenient and gave her the sense of safety she needed to get the shots required by her school.

“I’m glad Texas Children’s Pediatrics is doing this,” she said. “I think it will help ease the nerves of a lot of patients who want to come in and get their vaccines.”

September 20, 2016

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Dr. Carol Baker, executive director of Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Awareness and Research and Baylor College of Medicine professor of pediatrics, molecular virology & microbiology, presented the 2016 Jeryl Lynn Hilleman Endowed Lecture “Vaccines for Pregnant Women: A Long Time Coming” at the National Immunization Conference in Atlanta, GA on September 13.

This endowed lectureship, the first permanent endowment established at the CDC Foundation, was given by The Merck Company Foundation in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the 25th anniversary of the first combination vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella, M-M-R and its successor M-M-R II, licensed by Merck. The lecture has become an important and popular component of the CDC’s annual National Immunization Conference.

June 24, 2014

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While thousands flock to Brazil for the World Cup games, many health care workers are worried about more than which team will take home the trophy. NTDs like Dengue and Chagas are plaguing the citizens of Brazil – putting a definite damper on the spirit of the games.

“The theme of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil is ‘all in one rhythm.’ So far that rhythm could leave behind millions of Chagas disease sufferers in the Americas,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, Texas Children’s Hospital endowed chair in Tropical Pediatrics. Hotez’ recent article about Chagas disease, which is a leading cause of severe and life-threatening heart disease in the Americas, was published on HuffPost.com, and brings to light the fact that more than 1 million people in Brazil suffer from Chagas.

Also of great concern is the surge in cases of dengue fever in Brazil’s largest city, Sao Paulo. Certain strains of the disease, which is carried by female mosquitoes, can be fatal and there is currently no treatment or vaccine. Despite government efforts as of late to control mosquitos with powerful pesticides, the dengue epidemic is sweeping through Brazil, and many worry that international visitors could contract the disease and bring it back to their home countries.

“Several multinational pharmaceutical companies, even Brazil’s Instituto Butantan, are working to make a prototype dengue vaccine, but these will not be ready in time for the World Cup,” said Hotez. “In the meantime, measures aimed at mosquito control and personal protective measures against mosquitos are all that are available.”

Back here in Houston, fear of dengue spreading to the U.S. feels all too real, especially in light of evidence found by our own Dr. Kristy Murray, associate professor of pediatric tropical medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, which suggests that dengue has re-emerged in Houston. Murray and her team investigated the possibility that dengue might be in Houston because the area has the type of mosquitoes known to carry the virus and a dense population full of frequent travelers south of the border. But the study, published this past fall, found that most of the infections were transmitted in Houston.

“This study shows that Houston may be at risk of an outbreak, that people need to be on the lookout,” said Murray.

Beyond NTDs like dengue and Chagas, many in the health care field see Brazil’s hosting of the World Cup as a time to put the spotlight on the various diseases that impact (and often kill) children in Brazil and the Americas – some as simple as diarrhea and pneumonia, which can be prevented through vaccines.

The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) launched a World Cup-themed report last month, designed to draw parallels between the shots, saves and goals made on the field and the shots (vaccines) needed to save lives and help achieve GAVI’s big goals. The report, “Going for Goal: Immunization and the Case for GAVI,” looks at each team playing in this summer’s World Cup (as well as a few others who didn’t make the cut), analyzing their countries’ contributions to global immunization efforts and offering up “pundit’s verdicts” for their future performance.

So while sports fans may be fired up whenever their team scores over the next few weeks, here at Texas Children’s, we’ll be cheering on organizations that are working to ensure children in Brazil, and everywhere, get the vaccines they need – a goal worth celebrating.

Those who are traveling to Brazil this summer, or want to know more about the diseases mentioned in this article, should visit the Travel Clinic at Texas Children’s.

May 27, 2014

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By Dr. Tiffany McKee-Garrett

When a baby is born, parents want nothing more than to love and protect their child. Part of that protection starts right after birth with the administration of a vitamin K injection. Babies are not born with sufficient vitamin K levels and cannot get adequate amounts of vitamin K from breast milk, so this injection, given within the first hour after birth, is crucial because it helps a baby’s blood to clot normally, which prevents vitamin K deficiency bleeding (VKDB) in newborns.\

A dangerous trend
A recent CDC report confirmed that there has been a nationwide increase in parents refusing the vitamin K shot for their newborns – and this dangerous trend, often based on inaccurate information found online and faulty science, is causing more babies to experience hemorrhaging that is preventable and may cause brain damage or even death in some cases.

In the United States, administration of intramuscular vitamin K at birth to prevent all forms of VKDB has been standard practice since first recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 1961. Without the shot, the incidence of early and classical VKDB ranges from 0.25 percent to 1.7 percent of births and the incidence of late VKDB ranges from 4.4 to 7.2 per 100,000 infants. The relative risk for developing late VKDB has been estimated at 81 times greater among infants who do not receive intramuscular vitamin K than in infants who do receive it.

Early VKBD usually presents in previously healthy appearing infants as unexpected bleeding during the first two weeks of age, usually between the second and fifth day after birth. The bleeding can present as oozing from the umbilical cord area, bleeding from the circumcision site, persistent oozing from puncture sites, gastrointestinal hemorrhage, and/or bleeding into the brain, which can result in significant neurological complications that have a lifelong impact on a child.

Late VKDB is an indication of severe vitamin K deficiency and presents as unexpected bleeding, including brain bleeds in infants 2-12 weeks of age. Complications of late VKDB may be severe, including death. It classically presents in exclusively breastfed infants who received either no or inadequate neonatal vitamin K. It can also present in infants with intestinal malabosorption defects.

The myths
One myth about vitamin-k injections is that they are linked to leukemia, but studies show absolutely no relationship between getting vitamin K as a baby and an increased risk of leukemia. Another myth is that the vitamin K injection increases the risk of jaundice – which is inaccurate. Jaundice associated with vitamin K has been observed only in high risk babies (such as premature babies) in doses 30-60 times higher than the dose we give.

Some parents also argue that injections cause babies pain, but this pain is very brief and the benefits of the injection are very much worth a short period of discomfort. Parents are encouraged to mitigate this brief uncomfortable experience by holding baby skin to skin before and after the injection or allowing the baby to breastfeed before, during and/or after getting the injection.

In the not so distant past, infants and children had high rates of dying early in life. During the 20th century alone, the infant mortality rate declined greater than 90 percent and the maternal mortality rate declined 99 percent! Much of this is due to advancements in modern medicine. While it might seem nice to do things completely naturally, modern medicine has saved the lives of countless mothers and babies.