Electronic version of vaccination guide

The core of this guide is a practical tool compiled based on the latest "Vaccination Guidance Manual" released by the National Administration of Disease Control and Prevention in 2024 and the first-line practical standards of the preventive health care departments of three domestic tertiary hospitals. There is no one-size-fits-all requirement. All the content covers different vaccination scenarios for the general population and special groups. It will help you avoid pitfalls and also lists the clinical views of different schools. You can refer to it according to your actual situation without digging into the articles.

Not long ago, I was helping a friend get the HPV vaccine number at a community vaccination site. I met a little girl who was in her sophomore year. She fasted for 12 hours to avoid a reaction to the injection. As soon as she sat down and rolled up her sleeves, her vision went dark and she fainted. The nurse pinched her for a long time before she woke up. The first thing she asked after waking up was "Can I not get the shot?" In fact, there are too many similar misunderstandings. For example, many people still remember what their parents said when they were young: "You must not get vaccinated for colds" and "You can't touch water for 24 hours after vaccination." Many rules have actually been updated long ago.

Take the matter of fasting as an example. Currently, all approved conventional vaccines do not require fasting for vaccination. As long as you are not hungry to the point of hypoglycemia, eating light porridge, steamed buns and other foods normally can reduce the probability of needle fainting. The only thing you need to pay attention to is not to drink alcohol and not to eat foods that can easily trigger allergies. For example, if you are allergic to mangoes, don't touch them before vaccination, so as to avoid a rash later and you can't tell whether it is the vaccine or the mango.

As for the dilemma that many parents have about "whether to give their babies a combined vaccine or a single vaccine", there is indeed no unified standard answer in clinical practice. Most veteran nurses who have been doing preventive care for more than 20 years will recommend new parents to give priority to single vaccines. After all, clinical data of single vaccines have been accumulated for decades. In case of allergic reactions, the allergens can be quickly located and troubles are less likely to occur. ； Young pediatricians, on the other hand, recommend combination vaccines such as five-unit and six-unit vaccines, which can save eight vaccination visits and reduce the risk of cross-infection in the hospital. Moreover, the combination vaccines currently on the market have been clinically verified. There is no statistical difference between the incidence of adverse reactions and single vaccines. As long as they are approved products through formal channels, they are safe. Both views are reasonable. If you are not afraid of trouble and are highly sensitive to adverse reactions, choose a single vaccine. If you are busy at work and don’t have much time to go to the hospital, it is perfectly fine to choose a combined vaccine.

Last month, my nephew had a runny nose, had no fever, and had not taken medicine. My sister-in-law hesitated for a long time and did not dare to take him to get the hepatitis B vaccine. She called the vaccination site in advance. The doctor said that as long as he has no fever and no symptoms of acute infection, he can get the vaccine after stopping the medicine for 3 days. In the end, there were no problems after the vaccination. Of course, if you want to get BCG vaccine or rabies vaccine that has special vaccination requirements, if you are unsure, just call the vaccination center in advance to save yourself a wasted trip.

There are also many elderly people who say "you cannot take a bath for 24 hours after vaccination". In fact, the new version of the guideline in 2024 has long been changed to "if there is no obvious bleeding at the vaccination site, you can take a normal bath after 6 hours", as long as you don't rub the needle eye too hard. I took a shower the same night I got my flu shot last month. My mother chased me and scolded me for half an hour. I finally gave up after I pulled out the documents from the CDC and showed them to her. As for whether you can exercise or eat spicy food, which is often asked by people, as long as you don’t feel uncomfortable after exercising, you are not allergic to spicy food, and you can live a normal life, there is no need to change your schedule. If you really have a slight fever or redness and swelling at the vaccination site, as long as the body temperature does not exceed 38.5°C, the area of ​​redness and swelling does not exceed 5cm, drink plenty of warm water and rest, it will subside on its own in 1-3 days. If it persists for more than 3 days, it is not too late to go to the hospital.

There is currently a lot of flexibility in the vaccination recommendations for special groups. For example, whether pregnant women can get influenza vaccines. The latest guidelines clearly state that inactivated influenza vaccines can be vaccinated throughout pregnancy. The antibodies produced after vaccination can also be passed to the fetus through the placenta, providing the baby with protection for the first 6 months after birth. Protection, but it is true that many obstetricians will recommend vaccination after 12 weeks of pregnancy, mainly because they are afraid that natural fetal arrest in the early pregnancy will be misjudged as an adverse reaction of the vaccine, which will increase unnecessary psychological burden on the pregnant mother. You can choose based on your physical condition and the advice of the prenatal care doctor. There are also people with allergies, as long as they do not have a clear history of allergies to the active ingredients and excipients of the vaccine, they can be vaccinated normally. After vaccination, they must stay at the vaccination site for 30 minutes before leaving. If there is an allergic reaction, it can be dealt with in time.

By the way, if you forget what vaccinations you have received before and whether they have been fully vaccinated, you do not need to look through the green notebooks of your childhood. You can search "National Government Service Platform" directly on WeChat or Alipay to find the entrance to vaccination inquiries. Enter your ID number to check all your vaccination records. I checked before I planned to take the hepatitis B vaccine last time and found that my antibody titer after the booster shot in 2019 was still 120mIU/ml. The doctor said that I did not need to take a supplementary shot, which directly saved hundreds of dollars.

In fact, there is no standard answer to "what must be done" for vaccination. Everyone's physical condition is different. If you are not sure, just ask the doctor at the vaccination site directly. People do this every day, and it is much more reliable than the messy marketing articles you search online. If you have any questions that I haven't mentioned, you can also leave a message directly and I will check the latest official guidelines for you.