What is vaccination or immunization?
Vaccination or immunization are terms used interchangeably. Both the terms mean process of giving vaccines or ‘shots’ to children or adults so that they develop immunity or resistance against that particular disease.

How does a vaccine work?
Normally in many diseases the disease-forming germ enters the body, produces the disease & subsequently the body mounts immune response or fighting power against the germ and lastly one recovers from the disease. Here immunity against disease is produced after one has suffered from the disease. A vaccine is nothing else but whole or part of the disease germ, which has been processed or modified in such a way than it has lost its capacity to produce disease but it can still induce immunity or fighting power by body when administered in the body. Hence by vaccination one develops immunity without suffering from the disease.

What are the types of vaccine?
One can look at the types of vaccines from different angles. Different vaccines work against different diseases like there are separate vaccines for poliomyelitis, measles, diphtheria, tetanus etc. Vaccines can be oral vaccines like oral polio vaccine or oral typhoid vaccine or it can be injectable vaccine like DPT vaccine or hepatitis B vaccine. Vaccines can be single vaccine like the measles vaccine or combination of more than one vaccine like the MMR vaccine (which acts against meals, mumps & rubella) or the DPT vaccine (which acts against diphtheria, pertussis & tetanus). Injectable vaccines can be given subcutaneously i.e. below the skin like the measles vaccine or given intramuscularly i.e. in the muscle like DPT vaccine. Lastly vaccines are usually given prophylactically i.e. before the exposure to the disease germs like most of the vaccines e.g. polio vaccine, DPT, vaccine etc. Some vaccines work when given even after the exposure to the disease germ like the rabies vaccine, which is given after the dog bite. Hence one can look at the various vaccines from different angles.

Which vaccines are usually given to a baby?
The vaccines recommended routinely to a baby differ from authority to authority. We will mainly discuss the schedule recommended by Govt. of India & that recommended by Indian Academy of Pediatrics

Govt. of India schedule:

The minimum vaccines that an Indian child should receive are the vaccines recommended by Govt. of India under the Expanded programme of Immunization (EPI). It includes 3 doses of tetanus toxoid given to the mother during the pregnancy to protect both the mother and the newborn from tetanus.

After birth the baby receives vaccines against seven killer vaccine preventable diseases including BCG (against tuberculosis) oral polio vaccine (against poliomyelitis), DPT vaccine (against Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus), hepatitis B (against Hepatitis B) & measles vaccine (against measles).
The time schedule of giving these vaccines is shown in the table I. Individual vaccines are discussed somewhere else.


 

 

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