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Written By: Editorial Team | Updated : September 25, 2018 9:21 AM IST
Booster shots for kids © Shutterstock
A recent research suggests that most children who have mild to moderate reactions to a vaccine can safely receive booster shots. According to the UPI.com report, the Canadian scientists found that following subsequent vaccinations there is a low rate of recurring reactions. They said their findings should help inform doctors and parents about the safety of immunizations. The study has been published in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.
The study leader Dr. Gaston De Serres, of Laval University in Quebec, reportedly said that most patients with a history of mild or moderate adverse events following immunization can be safely re-immunized.
The health care professionals in the United States are legally required to report reactions to immunizations. Quebec has a similar reporting system for "unusual or severe" vaccine reactions.
For the study, De Serres and his colleagues analyzed data on 5,600 patients in this Canadian database from 1998 to 2016. All required additional doses of a vaccine that caused them to have a reaction. However, the researchers noted the seasonal flu shot was not included in the study since this vaccine changes from year to year, researchers noted.
Follow-up data were available on 1,731 of these patients. Of these, 78 per cent, or 1,350 people, received an additional vaccination. In most cases, the patients who received booster shots were younger than 2.
The researchers found that after receiving an additional vaccination only 16 per cent of the patients had another reaction. They also found that more than 80 per cent of these subsequent reactions were not any more severe than the initial reaction. The rate of reactions didn't affect the patients' gender.
As per as the study, kids younger than 2 years of age were more likely to be revaccinated and less likely to have more than one reaction than older patients. However, for different types of vaccination reaction recurrence rates didn't vary much. But the researchers did find that children who received a diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTaP) vaccine the revaccination following a reaction was highest.
