Vaccination Guide

Priority is given to vaccinations prescribed by the national free immunization program. Self-paid vaccines can be selected based on your age, exposure risk, health status and financial conditions. Before vaccination, proactively inform the doctor of your recent health status. After vaccination, stay for 30 minutes before leaving. If you feel unwell, contact the vaccination point or seek medical treatment nearby as soon as possible.

I have been working at a community vaccination site for almost six years, and I have been asked at least a thousand times about the question "Is self-funded vaccination a tax?" There are actually two parallel views on this matter in the public health field. One is that as long as the economy allows, all self-funded vaccines that can be covered are given, which is equivalent to adding several layers of safety cushions to health, especially those such as Pentagram, 13-valent pneumonia, HPV, and herpes zoster, which have been popular for many years and have been widely verified for their effectiveness and safety around the world. ； Another more pragmatic view is that if the budget is limited, priority should be given to ensuring full vaccination of the first category of vaccines, and self-paid vaccines should be given to those with the highest risk first - for example, children at home who have just entered kindergarten should be given priority for hand, foot and mouth and influenza, people who often go to work in the field should be given priority for hemorrhagic fever, women of childbearing age should be given priority for HPV, and middle-aged and elderly people over 50 should be given priority for influenza and shingles. There is nothing wrong with either view. The core thing is to look at your own needs. When my cousin was choosing vaccines for her baby last year, she had just changed jobs and was short on money, so she took all the first category vaccines on schedule and chose only hand, foot and mouth vaccines at her own expense. There happened to be an outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease in the kindergarten that year, and nothing happened to their baby. She said the money was worth it compared to enrolling in some useless interest class.

In addition to the dilemma of choosing a vaccine, the most frequently asked question is "Can I get vaccinated in my current situation?" There are many sayings on the Internet that you should not take a cold, you should not take a menstrual period, and you should not take anti-inflammatory drugs. In fact, they are all being overly cautious. The current mainstream clinical judgment standard is: as long as there is no fever, no acute disease attack, and no allergies to the active ingredients or excipients of the vaccine, everyone can be vaccinated normally. However, some clinicians will suggest that if you are in the period of a severe allergic attack, or have recently taken a large dose of immunosuppressant, you can wait for a while to stabilize before taking the vaccine. This consideration is also completely reasonable. After all, there is no harm in being more stable. Last month, a girl came to get a shot of quadrivalent HPV, just in time for the catkins. She had allergic rhinitis and was sneezing all the time. I measured her temperature at 36.7, and there was no sign of airway edema, so I gave her the shot normally. Later, she did not show any adverse reactions during a follow-up visit. She also said that she almost ran more than 20 kilometers in vain because she had been told on the Internet that she could not take the shot if she was allergic.

To be honest, most of the post-vaccination "taboos" posted on the Internet are unfounded rumors. After the treatment, many people dragged me and asked me if I couldn't take a shower, eat spicy food, or drink ice. I couldn't laugh or cry every time. As long as you don't rub the needle site too hard for 24 hours, it's totally fine to take a shower. If you don't have allergies to spicy food or seafood, you can eat whatever you want without special dietary restrictions. Oh, by the way, there was an old man who got vaccinated against herpes zoster last month and couldn’t bear to drink his favorite sorghum wine for three days. On the fourth day, he couldn’t help but drink a couple of ounces. Nothing happened. When he came over to prescribe antihypertensive medicine, he complained to me, “If you had told me earlier that there was no need to limit the food, why would I have suffered those three days?” Of course, if you have a low-grade fever or fatigue after taking the shot, it’s better to eat something lighter so as not to put any extra burden on your body.

Oh, by the way, pregnant women and the elderly with underlying diseases are the groups I usually worry about the most. In the past, many people said that pregnant women should not receive any vaccine. In fact, this view has long been outdated. The WHO has long listed pregnant women as a priority group for influenza vaccination. Most vaccination sites in China now also vaccinate pregnant women in the second and third trimesters with inactivated vaccines such as influenza and hepatitis B. However, some doctors will recommend not to vaccinate before 12 weeks of pregnancy out of caution. This is understandable. After all, everyone is afraid of problems. If you are really unsure, ask two more doctors for their opinions. There are also elderly people over 60 years old who have high blood pressure and diabetes. As long as they can control their indicators within a stable range by taking medicine, they can be vaccinated normally. My mother is 62 years old and has type 2 diabetes. I urged her to get the flu and herpes zoster vaccines last year. Her sister who was a square dancer had herpes zoster for three months and could not even sleep well. After the vaccination, my mother said that she felt much more at ease, which was better than buying her thousands of yuan in health care products.

In fact, getting vaccinated is really not that complicated. You don’t have to struggle for days with online strategies and you really can’t make up your mind. When you go to the vaccination site, talk to the doctor and explain your situation clearly. You can get the answer that is most suitable for you in a few minutes. After all, the best one is the one that suits you.