Adult Immunisation

Immunisations are a very important part in human life because they protect the individuals as well as the community from suffering from serious diseases.

Immunisations are of two types:

• Active immunisation
• Passive immunisation

Both the types of immunisation are helpful in preparing the body for fighting against certain diseases.

Active immunisation helps the body in generating antibodies essential for the fighting against a specific disease, by injecting vaccine into human body.

Passive immunisation gives human body protection for a short period of time by the injection of vaccines which already contain antibodies.

Necessity

Vaccine effectively prevents and reduces the impact of severe illness. If people are not vaccinated, diseases like smallpox, which have been eradicated, will return. That is the reason why vaccination is still maintained.

Vaccination must be given to a wider sect of the community to inhibit the spreading of an infectious disease. Care must be taken by pregnant women to take vaccines before becoming pregnant to avoid diseases like rubella.

When to be given

Vaccinations are mostly administered in the childhood.

Tetanus is a vaccine given in the childhood. An up-to-date vaccinated person needs only a booster dose due to an animal bite or injury.

Polio – The boosters of this vaccine must be administered to the health workers every 10 years as the chances of them developing the infection are high.

Hepatitis B is given to those people who have chances to developing it.

Pneumococcal vaccination should be administered to people over 65 years of age to avoid blood poisoning, meningitis and pneumonia.

Tuberculosis (TB)
BCG is given in the childhood at the time of birth.

Travel vaccines:

• typhoid,
• hepatitis A,
• meningitis C
• tetanus, polio and diphtheria
• yellow fever,
• meningococcal meningitis,
• Japanese and tick-borne encephalitis,
• hepatitis B, and
• rabies.

No vaccination is available for malaria, but anti- malarial drugs are available.

Side effects

The side effects may be:

• Fever.
• Redness at the injection site
• Swelling ate the site of injection
• Mild symptoms in cases of rubella and measles.

Very rarely people develop severe reactions to a vaccine, which is commonly termed as the anaphylactic shock. Anaphylactic shock is the hypersensitive or allergic reaction which is triggered due to the exposure of the human body to an antigen, which is present in the human body and recognises the vaccine as alien.
The main cause for anaphylactic shock is the presence of antibodies in trace amounts during the manufacturing of vaccine. It can also be due to the usage of egg protein while manufacturing the vaccines.

Cautions

One must inform the doctor while immunisation if
fever with temperature over 100.4F
suffers from blood disorder
he had reacted very severely to the previously given vaccinations,
a treatment for severe conditions like cancer has been done
there has been a transplantation in the near past
there is a condition affecting the immunity system like lupus
he is being administered with high doses of steroids
he is allergic to antibiotics like neomycin