Vaccine is given for prevention of a disease. As a pediatrician I can say prevention is better than cure, so it’s better to get vaccinated than to suffer the disease. We are expert Vaccination Center in Pimpri-Chinchwad providing vaccination. We are very conveniently situated in Ravet so very near to Punawale, Kiwale.
VACCINATIONS WE HAVE.
List of vaccines
- BCG Vaccine
- Oral polio vaccine
- Hepatitis B vaccine
- DTwP vaccine
- DTaP painless vaccine
- Tdap vaccine
- dT vaccine
- TT vaccine
- HiB vaccine
- Inactivated Polio Vaccine
- Penta-valent vaccine
- Hexa-valent vaccine
- Painless Hexa-valent vaccine
- Pneumococcal (PCV) Vaccine
- Rotavirus Vaccine
- Quadrivalent vaccine
- Influenza vaccine
- MMR Vaccine
- Typhoid TCV vaccine
- Japanese encephalitis vaccine
- Hepatitis A vaccine
- Chickenpox vaccine
- Oral Cholera vaccine
- Rabies vaccine
- Meningitis vaccine
- HPV vaccine
- Adolescent (teen) Vaccine
- Pertussis vaccine
Everything about vaccination you need to know
Today we will discuss in detail about vaccination. We will try to cover everything about child vaccination and adult vaccination. You may be concerned about vaccination for yourself or your near and dear child. I hope you find all your answers here.
To make the topic more interesting we will make it systematic and you will find it interesting to read. In some days we will try to upload a video so you don’t need to read.
Vaccination is now a universal health strategy followed across all the countries of the world. The last century was marked by many recent advances that changed in fact improved human day to day lives. Vaccination is one such invention learned by humans in recent history.
Let’s throw some light on this topic.
We will divide the topic under following headings so that it will be more useful to navigate through this knowledge for the better understanding of the concept.
- What is infectious disease?
- What is immunity?
- What is vaccination?
- History of vaccination.
- What are types of vaccine?
- How does the vaccine work?
- Which vaccines are currently in use?
- What is the vaccination schedule or vaccination chart?
- What are the effects of vaccination?
- What are the side effects of vaccination?
- To whom vaccination should not be given?
What is infectious disease?
Some of you might be already knowing about infectious disease. You may skip this section if you want. Let us explain it for those who do not have an idea about it. Even if you know it will help to clarify your idea in detail.
Diseases are of two types infectious and non-infectious.
Infectious diseases are caused by the agents causing infections. These infectious agents as we call it may be visible or invisible to the naked eyes. Usually they are invisible to naked eye and visible to the microscope.
These infectious agents have capacity to spread from one individual to another. These .can spread by touch, through water and food, through air or through sex. The route of spread is specific for specific infectious agents.
Once entered in your body these use the host means you as shelter and food and they attack the host. In the process You may feel the disease symptoms. The disease may be mild or severe and may be leading to death.
So essentially for infectious disease to occur, an infectious agent, means of spread and host are most needed things. This explains to stop the infectious disease you need to change any of this factor so that the disease spread halts.
What are examples of the infectious diseases?
Tuberculosis, measles, mumps, rubella, typhoid, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis, HiB, influenza, swine flu, Japanese encephalitis, yellow fever, chickenpox, polio, malaria, dengue, cholera, plague, Covid-19 and many more. These all are examples of infectious diseases. Some of them are very few in incidences especially in developed countries where vaccination strategy was followed. They still are a major health concern in developing third world countries where vaccination was not effectively done or people were not compliant with vaccination.
Still many people and children die of infectious diseases around the world.
What is immunity?
You and I are literally surrounded from each direction by our environment. This environment also has those harmful infectious disease agents around you. We are under threat of attack from these infectious agents each moment.
They can come through air, water, food, soil, touch and what not. So mother nature has enabled us to fight those infectious agents. You have literally an army of fighters in your body. This army which fights these infectious agents is called immunity.
So basically your immunity protects you from infectious agents, so you are alive. Sometimes these infectious agents can overpower your immunity and you can feel the disease symptoms. Sorry for using mild words literally you can suffer the disease if your immunity is not able to contain those infections.
Immunity is of 2 types. One is innate immunity and other is adaptive immunity.
Innate immunity is a power you have got from nature. It is inbuilt immunity. It is present at birth with you. It is effective in protecting you from some diseases.
Adaptive immunity is what you develop in the process of life. Innate immunity is insufficient to fight some infections. Like your macbook needs updates, your immunity too needs updates to fight the new infectious agents. This immunity is developed when you are exposed to the infections. It helps you to protect yourself when you get infected with the same agents next time.
But the drawback of developing adaptive immunity after getting exposed to infection is you may have to suffer from a disease in the process. The disease may cost some lives in the process. So to avoid this suffering and loss, we have vaccines.
In further sections we will see how these vaccines help you develop your immunity.
What is vaccination?
From the above discussion it may be clear to some of you that vaccination is a process of developing immunity with the help of vaccines.
Right from the birth you have risk of getting infectious disease so the vaccination process starts right from the birth. Many different vaccines are given as you grow in infancy and later. Vaccination has helped immensely to increase the lifespan of humans. It has drastically reduced the number of days you need to spend in hospitals admitted for infectious diseases.
It is very clear that countries where vaccination was strictly followed are doing better in health than third world countries who did not comply.
History of vaccination
There used to be many infectious diseases and many of them were fatal causing huge mortality reducing the average lifespan of humans. Smallpox was one of such diseases. It was causing either mortality or morbidity to those who got it across the world in many countries.
Edward Jenner observed that those people who milk the cows and who had got a similar but mild disease called cowpox were not getting smallpox disease. Cowpox was the disease which used to affect the udder of cows. This disease was able to spread to those who collected milk.
Sir Edward Jenner injected some fluid from the cowpox lesion to a boy and the boy suffered cowpox for some days and was ok. Later Jenner injected smallpox secretions to this boy and this boy did not suffer smallpox disease. He concluded cowpox secretions injected to the boy protected him from smallpox.
Cowpox at that time was known as Vaccinia. So this process of getting vaccinia injected was named as vaccination. Later on this term was used for many other diseases and vaccines were prepared from many other diseases. Sir Edward Jenner gifted the best gift ever to humanity.
What are types of vaccines?
Depending on the nature and their properties vaccines are of many types. It would be interesting for you to know how they are classified. Let us discuss types of vaccines. Vaccines are approved after rigorous clinical trials.
Depending on infectious agent
- Live attenuated vaccines
- Killed whole cell vaccines
- Cellular component vaccines.
- Split virion vaccines
Depending upon carrier protein
- Polysaccharide vaccines
- Conjugated vaccines
Depending upon number of disease it protects
- Mono-valent vaccines
- Multi-valent vaccines
Live attenuated vaccines
These vaccines contain live organisms in them. These live organisms have similarity with wild disease causing virion but it lacks the ability to cause disease like the original wild disease causing virus. On injection or ingestion these actually infect the host and multiply inside it. The immunity of the host recognizes them and gets trained to fight against it. When real infection occurs the body vigorously fights back the real infection. The disease is prevented.
Killed whole cell vaccine
The whole cell vaccine contains the actual bacterium similar to disease causing virus in killed state. It has all antigens that real disease causing bacteria carry. Your immunity gets trained after getting this injections. The antigens on the killed bacteria are recognized by the immunity and your immunity develops antibody and cellular immunity against the disease.
Eg. Killed whole cell pertussis vaccine
Cellular component vaccines
These vaccines instead of whole cells contain the components of the cells. These are components when recognized by immunity and immunity formed against these can kill real bacteria on infection. Cellular component vaccine are as effective as whole cell vaccines but they have lesser side effects.
Eg. acellular Pertussis vaccine
Split virion vaccines
Split virion vaccines contain the particles of the virus. They may contain the specific antigens against which antibodies are crucial to get protection from the infection.
Eg split virion influenza vaccine.
These vaccines contain the antigen which is polysaccharide in nature. The antigens which are polysaccharide are in nature are comparatively less efficient in immunity induction.
As we have seen above, Polysaccharide vaccines are inefficient in inducing immunity and they cannot be used for those less than 2 year old children. So these children need vaccines which can be identified by their immunity. Polysaccharides when conjugated to proteins are easily identified by your immunity. Conjugated vaccines are efficient in forming long term immunity too. So these types of vaccines are preferred.
Eg. HiB conjugate vaccines, Typhoid conjugate vaccines.
Monovalent vaccines are used and they contain antigens to protect from single infectious agents.
Eg TT vaccine and HiB vaccine.
Multivalent vaccines are used and they contain antigens from multiple disease agents. These vaccines are used as bivalent, trivalent, quadrivalent and pentavalent and hexavalent vaccines depending on the number of diseases they protect you.
Eg. Hexaxim vaccine.
How does a vaccine work?
When the vaccine is injected or ingested as indicated it is recognized by your immunity. Your immunity fights against those antigens and the mechanism to fight against those antigens is developed. In the process the memory also develops by which your immunity remembers about the infectious agent and about the process to fight it. When the real infection occurs, the body fights vigorously and the disease is prevented. Sometimes you need to learn the lesson multiple times, similarly your immunity may need multiple doses of vaccines to learn and sometimes you need revision too in the similar fashion after certain period doses of vaccines are needed for your immunity and those are called boosters.
So the crux of the story is that vaccination is a process of training your immunity to fight against the infections. Remember your school days, lol!
Which vaccines are currently used?
As you may be concerned for vaccination of your children and for yourself we will explain here universal vaccination which is usually followed across the countries.
In many countries this vaccine is given at birth. It is one of the oldest vaccines still in use. It protects your child from severe tuberculosis disease. BCG stands for Bacillus Calmette Guerin.
This vaccine protects your child from diphtheria disease. It contains diphtheria toxoid that is inactivated toxoids. This is usually given as a combination vaccine which helps to reduce the number of pricks your baby is likely to get.
Pertussis vaccine protects you from pertussis disease and It may be whole cell killed vaccine or acellular component pertussis vaccine.
This is Tetanus toxoid vaccine. Toxoid is an inactivated toxin. It protects you from getting tetanus disease. This is also given mostly as a combination vaccine.
Hepatitis B vaccine
This is a vaccine that protects you from Hepatitis B infection. It may be given as monovalent or as a combination multivalent vaccine.
Since the launch of this vaccine Haemophilus influenzae B disease has become rare in occurrence. Previously it used to be a major cause of death in children under 5 years. This vaccine is still used as H. influenzae B still remains a major cause of death in children though to a smaller proportion.
This is one of the major achievements in the history of humanity. Now the polio disease is about its extinction. It has saved billions of lives and along with the smallpox vaccine it is a major gift humanity has got. Now though oral live polio vaccine is to be replaced by inactivated polio vaccines in phased manner, in developing countries both trypes of vaccines are currently used for polio.
This vaccine protects you from getting the flu. This is a very important vaccine for those who are less than 5 years old and those who are more than 50 years old. This is also suggested for those who are diabetic and hypertensive and those have weakened immunity for some reason.
This is also a major vaccine used across the world. This vaccine protects from measles, mumps and Rubella 3 diseases. It is a live attenuated virus vaccine. This vaccine has also reduced the child mortality to a great extent.
If you are from the developed world you may not have seen this vaccine is routine use. Those staying in endemic areas should routinely get this vaccine. If you are planning to visit endemic areas in Asia or Africa you need to get it too. There are many types of typhoid vaccines including oral, injectable polysaccharide and conjugate vaccine. You should take a conjugate vaccine as it provides better protection though costs more.
Hepatitis A vaccine
Hepatitis A vaccine protects your child from getting Hepatitis A disease. It is of two types either live vaccine or inactivated virus vaccine. Inactivated virus vaccine is preferred usually. It is given by injection.
This is a live attenuated virus vaccine. It protects you from getting chickenpox. You need to take 2 doses to be more effective. It is a very efficient vaccine.
Pneumococcal vaccines protect you from getting Streptococcus pneumoniae infection. This vaccine is given in primary immunization and a booster. Polysaccharide and conjugate vaccines are available for pneumococcus. Usually conjugate vaccines should be preferred to use as it is more efficient. Polysaccharide vaccine should be used only for certain specific indications.
Japanese encephalitis vaccine
Though the name seems difficult this vaccine may save many thousand children from dying. You should take this vaccine if you are staying in an endemic area for Japanese encephalitis or You are going to visit the endemic area for Japanese encephalitis. Japanese encephalitis is a disease of brain spread by the mosquito and mortality in children is as high as 30 percent.
This is a vaccine that protects your child from getting cholera disease. This is usually given as an oral vaccine. You may need to take it 3 yearly as indicated. If you are staying in area endemic for cholera or if you are going to visit an area endemic for cholera you should take this vaccine.
Rotavirus vaccine is an oral vaccine given to prevent rotavirus infection ijn infants which is most common cause of diarrhea in this age group.
Yellow fever vaccine
If you are staying in an endemic area for yellow fever you need to get this vaccine. You may also need this vaccine if you are going to visit an endemic area for yellow fever disease. You get a certificate after getting this vaccine and to visit many countries during international travel you may need this certificate. The validity of the certificate is for lifetime.
Tick-borne encephalitis vaccine
This vaccine is given to prevent tick borne viral infection leading to encephalitis. This vaccine is needed only for those people staying in endemic regions. This vaccine may also be needed for those who are going to visit the endemic areas.
This vaccine is used to prevent human papillomavirus infection. Human papillomavirus is the cause of many benign and malignant genitalk lesions in men and women. It is an important cause of cervical cancer in females. This vaccine plays a crucial role in reducing cervical cancer in females.
Meningococcal vaccine is given to prevent meningitis caused by meningococcus. Currently in many countries this vaccine is not given in routine vaccination. Currently in many countries it is given mainly in high risk groups. In western world this vaccine is given in routine immunization and also in the teenage age before taking admission to university.
What is the vaccination schedule or vaccination chart?
Above all vaccines we need to give at specific age with repeat doses and booster doses too. The record is kept in a simple chart so that there is no confusion of parents and doctors about which vaccine was given this called a vaccination schedule or vaccination chart. You can see the universal vaccination chart below. This timetable is followed across the world in many countries with some variations. In some countries some specific vaccines are needed or may not be needed depending on current endemicity of the diseases in those areas. The vaccination schedule may be modified according to the needs of individual patients as per his or her condition. We will explain the chart here.
- At birth, Your child is given BCG and oral polio dose and Hepatitis B vaccine. In western countries dose of BCG is not given as tuberculosis is not a major health concern there. Some countries have stopped giving oral polio doses. In the developing world it is still in use.
- Then at 6 weeks, 10 weeks and 14 weeks doses of diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, HiB, Hepatitis B, inactivated polio vaccines, rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccine are given. Usually it is given in combination vaccines so the number of doses are reduced. Any of Pentavac, EasySix and Infanrix Hexa, Hexaxim are given as needed.
- Then at 6 and 7 months influenza vaccines are given.
- At 9 months MMR and typhoid conjugate vaccine is given.
- At 1 year Hepatitis A vaccine and japanese encephalitis vaccine is given.
- At 15 months MMR and Chickenpox, pneumococcal booster vaccine is given.
- Then at 18 months DPT-Triple, HiB, polio and Hepatitis A second dose is given.
- At 2 years of age meningococcal vaccine and Typhoid conjugate second dose is given.
- At 5 years DPT, MMR, Chickenpox boosters are needed.
- Then at 10 years, HPV and Tdap is given.
- Then you need to take a Tdap vaccine every 5 yearly.
- Apart from these influenzae vaccine dose is given yearly till 5 years age.
- If you are immunosuppressed and having risk of getting diseases you may need other vaccines too.
- If you are going to travel to endemic areas of the diseases, you may need to take specific vaccines.
Adults too need vaccinations. Especially many those adults who were not adequately vaccinated previously and have some mobidities like hypertension and diabetes, immunosuppressed state should be given vaccination.
Adults do need
- MMR vaccine.
- Pneumococcal vaccine.
- Typhoid conjugate vaccine.
- Shingrix vaccine to prevent shingles.
- Influenza vaccine.
- HPV vaccine.
- Tdap vaccine.
- In some cases meningococcal vaccine.
What are the effects of vaccination?
Vaccinations have many effects on humanity to make it better. In the last 150 years we have changed the world for the better for everyone. Average human lifespan has increased from meagre 40 years to 80 years.
We will describe here the effects of vaccination for individuals, for families and for countries.
You all might have an idea how vaccines have benefitted you. Let us make it more clear by focusing on this aspect.
- You protect yourself from getting disease with the help of vaccines.
- You avoid suffering from diseases by getting vaccines.
- Your workdays are saved as you don’t fall ill more frequently, this really makes a big difference in your career.
- As you do not fall ill you have more energy to work.
- As the diseases are prevented your child does not waste energy in falling ill and then recovering from it.
- The growth of a child is better as disease is prevented.
- Mortality under 5 has reduced drastically.
- By developing immunity and not falling ill with diseases families gain their health.
- There is no loss of near and dear ones with vaccine preventable diseases.
- Families save money by not falling ill and the money can be used for general progress of the families.
- Need to have more children is reduced as under 5 mortality is reduced so smaller the families better the child rearing practices.
As we have discussed earlier how you and your families have benefitted from the vaccination, It makes the things clear. The countries are made up of you and your families. As everyone is benefited countries are definitely benefited in the process. Vaccines help to build the herd immunity without people suffering from the diseases.
What are the side effects of vaccination?
Vaccines protect you from deadly diseases and they do have side effects too. Any vaccine is approved for use when it has proven safety with acceptably mild side effects and benefits are too many than side effects. Here we will discuss some common side effects after vaccination.
- Fever: This can be mild to high grade fever depending on the vaccine. All those who got vaccines may or may not get fever. Usually this side effect is manageable at home with oral medicines and sponging with water.
- Injection site pain: This is another common side effect after vaccination. Infants and adults alike may face these side effects. It usually subsides in 3-7 days depending on the vaccine. Generally it is manageable at home and may or may not need painkiller like paracetamol.
- Injection site swelling: It may come within a few hours of vaccination. It may be mild to moderate grade in nature. Usually subsides by its own or may need measures like local cold compression and pain killer like combiflam.
- Crying: Usually seen in children. May last for a few minutes to hours after vaccination.
- Loss of appetite: Some patients may get a feeling of decreased appetite. It may last for a few days after vaccination, usually reduced on its own.
- Loose motion and diarrhea: These side effects can occur with oral or injectable vaccines alike. It is usually mild and may reduce on its own.
- Body rash: It is not very uncommon to see body rash within days of vaccination.
- Other and serious side effects like anaphylaxis are extremely rare to occur. They are extremely rarely life threatening.
So though vaccines have side effects, the benefits outweigh the side effects. Vaccines should not be avoided for the sake of the side effects.
To whom vaccination should not be given?
- As benefits of vaccines outweigh the side effects the contraindication to vaccines are very few and extremely rare.
- Those who have allergy to any of the vaccine vaccine components.
- Those who have got anaphylactic reaction after particular vaccines should not be given again to patients.
- If your child have egg allergy vaccination can be given with caution.
- Patients allergic to one vaccine may get other vaccines.
- Severely immunosuppressed patients should jot be given live vaccines.
- Pregnant and lactating mothers should not be given vaccines that are yet not proven to be safe in such states.
What precautions are needed at the time of vaccination?
We will guide you regarding vaccination and precautions needed while going for vaccination.
- Select a good center for vaccination as there are many unqualified and bogus centers with no adequately trained staff there.
- Discuss the vaccination of your child with your pediatrician.
- Always keep the previous record of vaccination at the time of your pediatrician’s visit.
- Tell your doctor whether your child is allergic to any particular medicine.
- Tell your doctor whether your child is on any medication.
- You should discuss the possible side effects with your doctor beforehand to avoid the anxiety later on.
- You should discuss with management after vaccination.
- You should discuss the brands of vaccines and decide the best for your child with your doctor’s consultation.
- If you are going to travel, you should inquire about vaccination needed to protect yourself during travel.
So here we have tried to give you information about vaccination. We hope this will be helpful for you. You may read further about individual vaccines in other posts in this blog. You still g=have queries so we are open to answer anytime to help you. You can ask us in comment section.
You can visit us in person at Bhole Children’s Clinic.
|12 Months||Hepatitis A|
Japanese encephalitis dose 1
|13 months||Japanese encephalitis dose 2|
Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine booster
|16 -18 Months||DPT, HiB, IPV, |
Hepatitis A vaccine
|19 months||Influenza yearly|
|24 months||Typhoid vaccine|
|3 years||Yearly Influenza|
|4 years||Yearly Influenza|
|4-6 years||DPT booster, |
|15 years||Tdap vaccine each 5 yearly|
|Above age 50 years||5 yearly Tdap|
Single shot pneumococcal conjugate vaccine
|Above age 60 years||Shingrix vaccine|
In government hospitals National Immunization schedule is followed. That have less number of vaccines than we give in private set up.