Vaccines for Children
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010
Side effects, precautions and contraindications
The effectiveness and safety of modern vaccines has been demonstrated in different clinical scenarios, however, have reported some adverse effects including allergic reactions (urticaria, anaphylaxis), local inflammation, fever and / or clinical symptoms of the disease . As to the general precautions should be taken into account before the application of vaccines include the history of hypersensitivity reactions against any kind of immunization, the diseases of moderate to severe intensity with or without fever, pregnancy and nutritional deficiencies or general disturbance that may compromise the immune system.
Special-use vaccines
Other vaccines approved by FDA for use in specific clinical conditions (increased risk of disease, location in specific geographical areas, immune system deficiencies, tourism, among others) include inactivated preparations against Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), Bordetella pertussis (whooping cough), Borrelia Burgdorfer (Lyme disease), Neisseria meningitidis (meningitis), Streptococcus pneumoniae (meningitis), Vibrio cholerae (cholera), Yersinia pestis (plague) and against Japanese encephalitis virus and rabies; toxoids against Clostridium tetani and Corynebacterium diptheriae, live attenuated vaccines against M. Tuberculosis (TB), adenovirus (respiratory diseases) and yellow fever virus and inactivated live vaccine against Salmonella typhi (typhoid fever) .
The vaccines of the future
Immunization by application of DNA vaccines is a new technique that efficiently stimulate the humoral and cellular immune response against protein antigen. The DNA responsible for encoding infectious antigens can be incorporated into plasmids or vectors (attenuated bacteria or viruses) which, when introduced into the body triggers a response mediated by T helper and subsequent lymphocyte as B.1, 2
The use of peptides (antigen-specific fractions) as vaccines against certain diseases has been gaining strength in recent years. The advantages of such vaccines include greater chemical stability, greater specificity of the immune response and therefore safer for the patient, but there are still some technical difficulties must be overcome before achieving a more widespread .1, 2