FAQ’s

Vaccines are probably the most useful and cost-effective public health tools known to mankind for preventing diseases.

Vaccines are complex biologic agents which give you immunity against a particular disease without you getting sick.

They contain either the weakened disease-causing germs, which are either killed, attenuated, or a part of the disease-causing germ. Apart from the antigen, vaccines also contain some other components such as adjuvants which increase the potency of a vaccine, stabilizers which increase the stability of a vaccine and additives which are added during the manufacturing process.

Remember that investing money in vaccination is a much wiser decision than spending money on treatment of disease. Once we suffer from an infection, not only do we have to spend a huge amount in treatment, there is also loss on a number of work days, absenteeism in work of other family members and other social issues. And due to the emergence of antimicrobial resistance and other causes, we cannot guarantee successful treatment too for all infections.

Various vaccine preventable diseases for which effective and safe vaccine is available are Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus, Polio, Rotavirus, Pneumococcus, H influenza B, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis A, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Influenza, Typhoid, Varicella (Chickenpox), Meningococcal, Japanese Encephalitis, Yellow fever, Cholera, COVID, HPV, Rabies, Herpes Zoster. New vaccines are under research for Malaria, Dengue, RSV, HIV and many other diseases.

The response to vaccine depends on various factors like body’s immune function, strength of vaccine, cold chain maintenance and proper administration of vaccine. Same vaccine may have different efficacy in different individuals. One must understand that none of the vaccine will have 100 percentage efficacy but will help to decrease disease severity, hospitalization and death related to the said disease. For COVID vaccine, WHO had said that if the vaccine efficacy was above 50%, we were good to go with huge impact on morbidity and mortality.

For infections that spread by respiratory route like COVID and flu, we realised that vaccines are very important but various hygiene measures like wearing mask, keeping social distancing, use of hand sanitizers and keeping cough etiquettes helped in a big way for its prevention.

For infection that spreads by feco – oral route like Typhoid and Cholera, we need to avoid outside food, keep food well covered, use clean water and wash hands regularly.

For vector borne diseases like Malaria and Dengue which transmits through mosquitoes, one must decrease mosquito breeding places, and keep place less crowded, clean and sunny.

Most currently available vaccines pass through a very stringent process of manufacturing and quality control. They are approved for use in humans only after years of research work which include animal studies and various stages of human trials. These vaccines are being used in humans only after getting approval from the highest licensing and recommended bodies (national and international) once they have been found useful and safe.

There may be adverse effects following immunization which may or may not be related to the vaccine, process of immunization, anxiety related or unrelated to the process, and just coincidental.

It’s good to understand the details with vaccine expert and take an informed decision.