Hello and welcome to a new series of the Zero to Finals podcast on pediatric infectious diseases.

My name is Tom and in this first episode of the series I'm going to be talking to you about vaccinations.

You can find written notes on this topic at zero definals.com slash vaccinations or in the infectious diseases section of

the zero definals pediatrics book. So let's get straight into it. Vaccinations are an incredibly

safe and effective way to protect children and adults from serious infections. A weakened or

inactive version of the pathogen is given to stimulate an immune response,

and this immune response leads to immunity to the full version of that pathogen.

This reduces the risk and the severity of infection with that pathogen.

Inactivated vaccines involve giving a killed version of that pathogen.

It's impossible for inactivated vaccines to cause an infection and they're safe for immunocompromised patients,

although the immunocompromised patients may not have an adequate response.

Examples of inactivated vaccines are polio, the flu vaccine,

hepatitis A and rabies. Subunit and conjugate vaccines contain parts of the organism used to

stimulate an immune response. They also cannot cause infection and they're safe for immunocompromised patients.

Examples of subunit and conjugate vaccines are pneumococcus, meningococcus, hepatitis B,

pertussus which is whooping cough, emophilus influenza type B,

human papillomavirus or HPV, and shingles, which is the herpesoster

virus. Live attenuated vaccines contain a weakened version of the living pathogen. These are still

capable of causing infection, particularly in immunocompromised patients.

The following vaccines are live attenuated vaccines.

The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine contains living, weakened versions of all three viruses.

The BCG vaccine contains a weakened version of tuberculosis.

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