Vaccination schedule: everything you need to know
How important are vaccines? Is it necessary to follow the vaccination schedule ?
These are just some of the questions that new parents ask themselves in the first days of their little one's life. In this article, you can read how it works and everything you should know about vaccines.
How does the vaccination schedule work?
The vaccination schedule includes all the vaccinations that the National Health System offers free of charge to children from the first months of life.
Here's how a vaccination schedule generally works:
- Mandatory vaccinations: These vaccines are required to access certain services, such as education or healthcare.
- Recommended Vaccinations : In addition to mandatory vaccines, there are recommended vaccines that may vary based on individual health conditions and the epidemiological context.
- Dose and interval schedule : The vaccination schedule specifies when and how many doses of each vaccine should be given. Some vaccines require multiple doses to achieve complete immunity, while others may be effective with just one dose. Also, the intervals between doses may vary depending on the vaccine.
- Boosters : Some vaccines require a booster to maintain the effectiveness of immunity over time. These are given years or decades after the first series of vaccinations.
The vaccination schedule is subject to constant monitoring and can be updated as needed. This is because new vaccines can be introduced or some vaccinations can be withdrawn or replaced by more effective ones.
Vaccination schedule: which vaccines are mandatory?
Hexavalent
The first mandatory vaccination in the vaccination schedule is the hexavalent one . This is administered against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, polio, Haemophilus influenza type b and hepatitis B and consists of two doses at the 3rd and 5th month of life. This vaccine also requires a third booster dose that is administered between the 11th and 13th month of life .
In recent years, mothers have been advised to get the pertussis, diphtheria and tetanus vaccine around the 28th week to protect their newborn in the months before the hexavalent vaccination. This is because whooping cough is a highly contagious infectious disease and is particularly dangerous in the first year of a child's life. In fact, in newborns and infants, whooping cough manifests itself with coughing fits and choking attacks , which require hospitalization. In the most serious cases, it can cause permanent damage or death to the child.
MMRV vaccine
It has been mandatory for newborns since 2017 and protects the child against measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox. The first dose is administered between 12 and 15 months, while the second between 5 and 6 years.
The vaccine contains the attenuated virus and with two doses is 90% effective in protecting against disease.
But what does it prevent specifically?
- Chickenpox usually causes only the typical rash. However, about 1 in 1,000 children with this disease can develop a serious pneumonia or encephalitis . This becomes very dangerous if contracted during pregnancy , as it increases the chances of giving birth to a child with birth defects (1 in 50 born to a mother who has the disease during pregnancy).
- Mumps in children, in 5 cases per 100,000 of disease, causes hearing loss . Complications are greater if this disease is found in adulthood because it can lead to testicular atrophy with consequent sterility for men and abortion for pregnant women.
- Complications from measles are relatively rare, but it is responsible for between 30 and 100 deaths per 100,000 people affected, especially in newborns or immunocompromised people.
- Finally, regarding rubella , although rare, the complications are encephalitis (1 case in 6000) or thrombocytopenic purpura (1 case in 3000), which can also lead to death. Even in this case, if contracted during pregnancy it leads to spontaneous abortion, intrauterine death of the fetus or serious malformations .
Vaccination schedule: which vaccines are optional?
Anti-meningococcus B
It is offered free of charge to newborns starting from the 7th month of life and protects children from invasive forms of infection such as meningitis and septicemia which can lead to:
- neurological damage (hemiplegia, mental retardation, epilepsy, hearing impairment, learning disabilities): 10-20 per 100 meningitis survivors;
- skin tissue necrosis, amputations of fingers or limbs: 25 per 100 of sepsis survivors;
- Deaths: 10-12 per 100 people with meningitis, even with appropriate antibiotic therapy; in case of septicemia the mortality rate is over 40 per 100 people.
Anti-pneumococcus
This vaccine requires the administration of 3 doses : respectively at the 3rd month, at the 5th and at the 11th month of the child's life. This is the only way to prevent diseases such as meningitis and blood infections (septicemia) from pneumococcus which can lead to:
- Neurological damage (hemiplegia, mental retardation, epilepsy, hearing impairment, learning disabilities): 15-20 out of 100 meningitis survivors
- Deaths from meningitis: 30 out of 100 and up to 80 out of 100 in older people
- Deaths from sepsis: 15-20 per 100 in adults and 30-40 per 100 in subjects over 65 years of age.
Anti-meningococcus ACWY
Anti-rotavirus
Rotavirus is a virus that causes a strong and therefore dangerous form of gastroenteritis if found in the first months of the newborn's life as it quickly leads to dehydration.
The rotavirus vaccine is administered orally at 3, 5 and 7 months .