Child Care: Key Points to Know About Immunization for Children

❖ Amongst all vaccines, BCG is the least efficacious. It does, however, protect against the severity of the disease. The formation of the BCG scar may take 8-12 weeks.

❖ Polio: More doses than recommended can be safely given. Therefore, children can receive polio doses as a part of Pulse Polio immunisation, even if recently vaccinated.

❖ Hepatitis-B vaccine is given in the muscle of the arm (after the age of 1 year) and in the thighs (before the age of 1 year).

❖ Immunisation can be safely given in the presence of minor illnesses like cough, cold, diarrhoea & low- grade fever.

❖ Anyone at any age can be immunised, if not immunised before or partially immunised. The same immunisation schedule is followed.

❖ It is not necessary to restart an interrupted schedule from the beginning or give extra doses. Instead, Immunisation is continued as if no interruption has occurred.

❖ Multiple vaccines can be given together on the same visit without any problem.

❖ As the efficacy of a vaccine is never 100%, vaccinating the child doesn’t mean that he cannot get the disease. Most vaccines have efficacy of over 95%, except BCG (efficacy 50%).

❖ Rubella vaccine is primarily used not to protect the recipient (as other vaccines are), but to protect the baby of a pregnant woman from congenital rubella, a devastating disease.

❖ Vaccines rarely have side effects, like allergic reaction, pain, fever etc. It is prudent to ask your doctor about these side effects.

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