Learning Objectives for this Presentation:
By the end of this presentation participants will be able to understand the issues, risks, and benefits associated with setting pediatric vaccine stockpile levels at appropriate levels.

Background:
A stochastic model is described to capture the impact of various pediatric vaccine stockpile levels required to mitigate the effect of vaccine production interruptions. The model takes into account the length of the production interruption, as well as the rate at which vaccine production resumes.

Objectives:
Provide a quantitative assessment of the CDC recommended pediatric vaccine stockpile levels, measured in terms of the risk in not being able to provide coverage for all children requiring immunization during a production interruption. Use these results to provide new recommendations for such levels.

Methods:
The stochastic model is used to compute the probability that all children requiring immunization could be immunized during a vaccine production interruption. The model is also used to reverse engineer appropriate pediatric vaccine stockpile levels.

Results:
The CDC recommended stockpile levels are adequate to absorb the negative effects of a vaccine product interruption of six months or less, in the most optimistic scenario. However, since most recent production interruptions have averaged more than six months, these stockpile levels are set too low. Moreover, by considering moderately higher vaccine stockpile levels, vaccine coverage rates of 95% can be achieved in the event of an eight month or longer vaccine product interruption.

Conclusions:
A modest investment in higher pediatric vaccine stockpiles can provide significantly enhanced protection against unexpected and potentially lengthy vaccine production interruptions.