Modern parents, when compared with previous generations, have many advantages in terms of raising children. With the advent of the baby, his mom and dad plunge into a new, previously unknown children's world: toys, all kinds of children's household appliances, care products, a variety of developmental, educational methods ... With the advent of the Internet and social networks, the parental horizon has expanded significantly, and the search has become possible the most suitable conditions for a particular child for his healthy development and interesting leisure.
Specifically, in this article we will talk about the topic where many copies are broken, vaccine prophylaxis and the vaccination calendar for children. She devoted a lot of material in information sources, sometimes contradictory or completely false, repeatedly increasing the burden of parental responsibility for the health of her baby. Should a child be vaccinated or not? This question often begins to worry even before birth, fouling along the way with various rumors and speculation, often leading to a dead end. We will try to analyze this problem in detail.
Vaccination of children and vaccination calendar
Vaccination (immunization, vaccination) is the creation of artificial immunity against the causative agents of the most common dangerous infectious and viral diseases (diphtheria, measles, poliomyelitis, mumps, whooping cough, tetanus, pneumonia, meningitis, hepatitis B, influenza, etc.). Vaccination can be considered a real breakthrough in medicine in the field of health, especially for children. Diseases, which until the middle of the last century very often became a sentence for a small child, today either completely disappeared, or proceed without complications in vaccinated children. Vaccination is carried out in accordance with the calendar of vaccinations for children. Be sure to take into account the individual characteristics of the body of each baby.
The calendar of mandatory vaccinations for children in Russia can be divided into two parts:
1. Vaccination against the most common infectious and viral diseases in the human population, characterized by a particularly severe course with frequent complications (flu, diphtheria, whooping cough, mumps, measles, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, tetanus, etc.).
2. Vaccination according to epidemic indications: zoonotic infections (anthrax, brucellosis, etc.), natural focal infections (leptospirosis, tick-borne encephalitis, etc.), vaccinations for people at risk of infection (cholera, typhoid fever, hemophilic infection, hepatitis A).
Vaccination conditions for children
Vaccinations are a responsible and important step for parents in order to protect the health of their child, so you need to take it seriously, taking into account all the individual characteristics of the development of the baby. The most authoritative source in terms of vaccination is the vaccination schedule for children. It was compiled by WHO taking into account the development and age of an average healthy child, but this does not mean that all its terms and conditions must be strictly followed, without paying attention to the condition of the vaccinee.
A few simple rules will help parents find the best option for successful vaccination of children:
1. At the time of administration of the vaccine, the child must be completely healthy. Any, even minor ailment can be aggravated if vaccinated against its background. Immunity should not be overloaded, because developing the body's resistance to vaccinated infections requires a lot of resources from it. Temperature, runny nose, cough, lethargy, constipation, diarrhea; any hint of a clearly or latent malaise should be regarded as a serious reason not to be vaccinated until recovery. It is recommended to take blood and urine tests before vaccination to exclude a latent infection.
2. It is necessary to limit the contact of the baby with strangers during vaccination. You should not go to visit at this time, visit the clinic, crowded events, it is also better to avoid situations that can weaken the body: bathing in ponds and pools, prolonged exposure to the sun, walking in severe frost.
3. You need to postpone the vaccine if the child first appeared or worsened allergies. You should wait for remission, follow all the recommendations of your doctor.
4. It is better to unload the baby's intestines on vaccination days. To do this, you need to limit the child's nutrition the day before vaccination and follow this diet for 2-3 days. Do not overfeed at this time, introduce new products into the diet, and on the day the vaccine is administered, it is better to go on it with an empty stomach. It is advisable to feed the baby no earlier than an hour after vaccination. When the body does not need to be distracted by the digestion of large volumes of food, it tolerates the introduction of the vaccine easier and faster.
5. No drugs, including antihistamines, have any effect on the body's response to vaccination.
6. Do not vaccinate during heat, severe frosts or raging epidemics. They can aggravate the course of the post-vaccination period. It is better to wait for a calmer and more stable period.
7. After vaccination, do not leave the walls of the clinic for at least 30 minutes. Rare possible strong reactions to vaccine components usually develop in the first half hour to an hour after vaccination, so it is better not to go far from the treatment room, which has all the necessary drugs for first aid.
8. The first three days after vaccination should closely monitor the condition of the baby.
National vaccination calendar for children in Russia
The Russian vaccination calendar includes a list of 12 vaccines used against the most common dangerous diseases in the country. The last change in it was made in 2015, when the vaccine against pneumococcal infection joined the mandatory.
For children under 1 year of age, the vaccination calendar is the richest. All other vaccinations are generally given to children by the age of 1.5-2 years, but the timing may be different, depending on the individual characteristics of the child’s health. In addition, for children under 14 years of age, the vaccination calendar provides for revaccination. They are a repeat of vaccinations already done.
Let us consider in more detail the vaccination calendar for children under 3 years old, developed by WHO for Russia.
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (consumption) is a common infectious disease that causes the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, mainly the lungs are affected. According to WHO data, about 2 billion people are infected with a bacterium; in 2013, 80,000 children out of 550,000 infected with tuberculosis died. In the absence or untimely treatment, 2/3 of the patients are killed. In one year, the patient is able to infect 10-15 people from close circle, most of all children and people with immunodeficiency are exposed to this.
A vaccine designed to fight the most severe forms of tuberculosis in infants (tuberculous meningitis, as well as disseminated form of tuberculosis), is BCG. It cannot prevent primary infection with tuberculosis, as well as reactivation of the latent form of tuberculosis, but it prevents the development of its most lethal forms for children.
Hepatitis B
Hepatitis B (HVB), a viral infection that causes severe liver damage, causes cirrhosis and liver cancer. The virus is stable in environmental conditions, is able to survive up to 7 days outside the body, is transmitted from a sick person with blood and other biological fluids. More than 350 million people are sick in the world, and every year 780,000 people die from hepatitis B virus.
Thanks to vaccination, 95% of children develop immunity that can protect their body from hepatitis B virus for about 20 years, and many have resistance to it for life. In Russia, AKDS-GEP B vaccines are used, as well as a recombinant hepatitis B vaccine, Infanrix HEXA, Bubo-M and others.
Whooping cough
Whooping cough is a common infectious disease, especially among young children. It is accompanied by a characteristic convulsive cough, up to respiratory arrest. Often complicated by pneumonia, convulsions, encephalopathy. Before the era of vaccination, it was considered one of the main causes of child mortality. If the number of vaccinated babies is reduced to 30%, the incidence increases to the previous level (the mortality rate is about 687 thousand people per year).
Vaccinated children acquire stable immunity to whooping cough; upon contact with the infection, the disease either does not develop, or proceeds in a mild form. The pertussis vaccine is usually combined with diphtheria and tetanus toxoids. It should be noted that the pertussis component in vaccines occurs in whole-cell (DTP, Bubo-M, Bubo-Kok, etc.) and cell-free form (Pentaxim, Infanrix, Tetraxim, etc.) . Vaccines with a whole-cell pertussis component are more likely to cause post-vaccination reactions in children than with cell-free ones. For children with weakened immunity and poor tolerance of pertussis vaccines, the ADS-M vaccine is provided (diphtheria and tetanus toxoids, without pertussis component), but then the child remains susceptible to this disease.
Diphtheria
Diphtheria - an infectious disease caused by Leffler's bacillus, affecting the oropharynx, bronchi, skin integuments, can affect other organs. It is dangerous because diphtheria bacillus releases a very toxic toxin, which affects the cardiovascular, nervous and excretory systems. In addition, the disease can cause croup with damage to the oropharynx, often ending in death from suffocation. Ways of infection with diphtheria: airborne, contact-household.
Diphtheria throughout history has been a leading cause of endemic infant mortality; fatal outcome from it reached 50-60%. With the advent of antitoxic serum and vaccine, diphtheria has almost lost its sinister role: now it is found in 0.01 cases per 100 thousand of the population in Russia.
The national vaccination calendar for children under one year of age and older offers the combination vaccines DTP, Bubo-Kok, Bubo-M, Infanriks, Tetraxim, Pentaxim, and others for protection against diphtheria; toxoids AD-M, ADS-M, ADS.
Tetanus
Tetanus is a severe acute infectious disease provoked by infection of wounds, burns, frostbite of any violations of the integrity of the skin by strains of the stick of Clostridium tetani. The disease provokes convulsive contractions of the muscles of the whole body, bending them in the most unusual forms, convulsions can last continuously, causing numerous complications: sepsis, pneumonia, myocardial infarction, fractures of bones, spine, muscle ruptures, tendons, thromboses, etc.
Mortality from tetanus is very high, slightly less than from rabies and pulmonary plague, because due to frequent serious complications it is difficult to treat. Tetanus is easier to prevent than to treat, so the vaccination schedule for children from three months of age recommends the vaccines DTP, ADS, ADS-M, Bubo-KOK, Bubo-M, Pentaxim, Tetraxim, Infanrix.
Pneumococcal infection
Infectious diseases caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae (70% pneumonia, 25% otitis media, about 5-15% meningitis, 3% endocarditis, etc.) have a high mortality rate for children under 5 years of age (up to 40%) and pose a serious problem in global public health. It is considered the most dangerous of the infections that can be prevented by vaccination. The transmission path is airborne.
Since 2015, the vaccination calendar for children under 1 year of age has been offering vaccines Prevenar-13, Sinflorix, and for children from 2 years old, Pneumo-23.
Measles
Measles is a serious infectious disease with high (up to 10 0%) infectiousness and high mortality among children (before the invention of vaccines, measles was called childhood plague). It is characterized by catarrhal phenomena, a rash and complications in the form of pneumonia, cerebral edema, severe diarrhea and dehydration, otitis media. It is transmitted most often by airborne droplets, as well as contact-household routes.
The vaccination calendar for children under one year of age recommends vaccines registered in Russia: it is a crying cultural live vaccine, a vaccine for mumps and measles, cultural live (divacinus), Priorix, MMR II MMR II (live).
Mumps
Mumps (mumps) is an acute infectious disease that affects the glandular organs (pancreas, ovaries and testicles, salivary glands) and the central nervous system. The mumps infection route is airborne.
The disease is dangerous due to its complications: infertility, cerebral edema, encephalitis, hearing loss. Despite very low mortality, it can create significant health problems in the future.
In the vaccination calendar for children under 1 year of age for the prevention of mumps, a mumps culture live vaccine, mumps and measles divacin and mumps and measles rubella vaccine are offered.
Rubella
Rubella is an infectious viral disease characterized by a mild course in children and adults, but causing severe fetal pathologies during pregnancy, up to miscarriage or stillbirth. Transmitted by airborne droplets.
Rubella vaccination is especially important for girls and women because it is designed to protect their unborn baby during pregnancy. Vaccinations included in the vaccination calendar up to 1 year: CPC (measles-mumps-rubella), Priorix.
Polio
Poliomyelitis is a serious viral disease that leads to damage to the human nervous system and can lead to paralysis in the shortest possible time. With paralysis of the respiratory muscles, a lethal outcome occurs. The transmission route is usually fecal-oral or contact-household.
Since 2016, the Russian calendar of compulsory vaccinations for children recommends an inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), which is administered both as a single-component vaccine and as part of the combined vaccines Pentaxim, Tetraxim, Infanrix Hexa, Infanrix Penta.
The list includes diseases that at the moment are in the National vaccination calendar of Russia as mandatory for vaccination. Due to the wide coverage of the population with vaccination, the severe consequences and high mortality from these diseases among children are minimized. At the request of parents, medical institutions can vaccinate babies against infections such as rotovirus, meningococcal infection, influenza, hepatitis A, hemophilic infection, etc. It is possible that the national calendar will eventually replenish with vaccines against some of these infections.