Introduction
Vaccinations are now part of everyday medical life and have led to the fact that diseases such as smallpox, poliomyelitis or mumps are known to most people of younger generations in the western world only from stories or books, but hardly ever occur. In general, basic immunization should be completed in childhood. However, some vaccinations such as tetanus or diphtheria require a booster every 10 years. Other vaccinations, such as the flu vaccination, are only recommended after a certain age and are therefore part of the vaccination plan for adults. If a child has not yet been vaccinated against meningitis, this can be done in adults.
What vaccinations should an adult have?
There are some standard inoculations in Germany, which one should have gotten as an adult independently of the life-style (journeys, possibly medical occupation ect.). These include vaccinations against tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, poliomyelitis (after vaccination in childhood usually lifelong immunity, if not vaccinated in childhood the poliomyelitis virus is infectious and dangerous for adults as well), measles, mumps (if you were born after 1970) and rubella.
What are the common side effects after vaccination in adults?
Just like all other drugs, vaccinations have side effects in addition to the desired effect. The individual vaccination decision should be made by weighing the risks of the disease against those after vaccination. This is also the procedure used by the Standing Commission on Vaccination (STIKO) in making its vaccination recommendations.
The frequency of side effects can be divided into very frequent (10%), frequent (1-9%), occasional (0.1-0.9%), rare (0.01-0.09%) and very rare (less than 0.01%). Basically, two types of vaccines can be distinguished. The live vaccines, e.g. against measles, mumps, rubella or yellow fever, which are produced from modified pathogens, often trigger strongly attenuated symptoms of the respective disease and also generally lead to a stronger defence reaction of the body.
The advantage of live vaccines is that hardly any auxiliary substances have to be used to strengthen the vaccination reaction. In addition, live vaccines require fewer or no boosters. In contrast to that the dead vaccines are e.g. against rabies, Meningokokken or Poliomyelitis, with which only virus particles are given.
Inactivated vaccines often cause fewer side effects and a weaker vaccination response, but they often have to be administered repeatedly according to a specific regimen and do not guarantee lifelong immunity. Side effects of the vaccination, as they are called by the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, include redness, local swelling or pain at the site of the injection. These symptoms are common and should usually disappear after a few days.
In addition, fever below 39.5°C, malaise, nausea and headaches can often occur. Rarely do joint problems or seizures occur, very rarely neuropathies. The frequent symptoms are not to be classified as dangerous and rather prove the immune defence activated by the vaccination.
All articles in this series: