"I had all the vaccines as a child"...
With this sentence, the vaccination issue is often dismissed as if to clear one's conscience to return to what is commonly considered "normal", but have you ever realized the number of doses offered to a child born in 1980 and one born in 2023?
Below you can see the vaccine offer of 1980 compared to that offered today with the new National Vaccine Plan 2023-2025.
Now try to identify yourself: you are a new mother or a new father in 1980 and you go to the pediatrician for the first visit of the two months. The Doctor will offer you the only two compulsory vaccines, a bivalent Diphtheria and Tetanus and the oral anti-polio Sabin. This formula, an inoculum and an oral vaccine, will have to be repeated 4 more times, at 4 months, around the year and finally between 5 and 7 years. With these unique vaccines you were considered "good parents", 4 bites and 4 oral vaccines to comply with legal obligations, at least until 1992 when the Minister of Health, Francesco De Lorenzo, after pocketing a bribe of 600 million lire, did not it also made the hepatitis B vaccine mandatory... but that's another chapter.
In 1980, if you wanted to exceed the mandatory vaccines, you had two other options at your disposal: at one year of age you could have 1 vaccine administered against measles, a monovalent vaccine that has now disappeared from the market, and for girls, the rubella vaccine around third year of middle school.
Now we come to the newborns 2023 and to the Government proposal with the new National Vaccine Plan 2023-2025: we start for some children with Hepatitis B at birth and we run immediately after with hexavalent (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Poliomyelitis, Haemophilus influenzae B and Hepatitis B) to be done in 3 vaccinations at 2 months, 4 months and 10 months, in co-administration with the vaccine against Pneumococcus, always 3 doses scheduled as above. We tell you right away that we no longer hang around and the vaccine against Meningococcus B is often co-administered, always 3 doses and always within 10 months of life, to which is added the oral vaccine against Rotavirus to be done in 2 or 3 vaccinations (depending on the product chosen if 2 or 3).
From 12 months we start with Measles, Rubella, Mumps and Varicella (MMRV) mandatory and since they are kind, we also add the Meningococcus ACWY vaccine (tetravalent) because, as mentioned, no more time is wasted here. An, yes, sorry, we almost forgot... the flu vaccination starts from the sixth month of life and you will carry it on for the rest of your life since it has to be done again every year.
From 5 years old we start again but as they can no longer do the hexavalent they will offer you Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis and Poliomyelitis and the ASL decides whether to make them separate or united, i.e. DTP+Polio or DTPa with separate Polio in a single vaccine. Obviously there is the second booster of the MPRV vaccine (Measles-Mumps-Rubella-Varicella) and finally it stops for a little bit, unless you take the annual flu shot.
From the age of 12 we start with the vaccine against Papilloma Virus but be careful, if you start right there are only 2 doses, if delayed there are 3 doses to which you add the booster Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis and Poliomyelitis. Also in this phase the recalls of Meningococcus ACWY and Meningococcus B end.
A child born in 1980 received 14 doses in 9 or 10 vaccinations from 0 to 18 years old while a child born in 2023, in the same age group, will receive 60 doses in 37 vaccinations and we are excluding anomalous epidemic situations and the Covid vaccine -19.
Let's hope that now it's clearer to you that the "" I had all the vaccines as a child " doesn't make sense.
Corvelva Staff