Child To Go For DTP/OPV/Hib Vaccination. Which Injection Should I Go For Painful Or Painless? Benefits Of Painless Injections

Hello,

Thanks for writing in.

Yes painless vaccines especially DTP, are available in India now for the last 5 years. Much less pain, lesser chances of swelling and not many have reported fever. All the sterilization precautions have to be observed so prefer a reputed hospital for administration. Only downside is- these are a little expensive. However, efficacy is equal to "painful" vaccination.

With Best Wishes.

Dr Anil Grover
MBBS, MD (Medicine) DM (Cardiology)

Hi Kavita,
You can go for the DTP vaccine which has the whole cell component of pertussis. Although, t has been shown to be less painful and does not cause fever and incessant crying, sometimes seen with DPT vaccine. Also, the cost is significantly higher.
Also, other side effects like erythema, swelling, fretfulness, drowsiness is reported to be significantly less with DTaP as compared to DPT. The frequency of serious adverse events with both the vaccines remains the same.
The Indian academy of pediatrics still recommends the DPT vaccine as the efficacy is 85-95% as compared with 75-90% seen with DTaP
Hope this helps
Regards

hi kavita,

if your son is 4 months old then i assume he has already received to doses of DTP Hib and 3 doses of Opv.. if this is the case then you can recieve the same vaccine that was given to him previously if he never had any reactions to those vaccines..

if this is the first time you are going for vaccination then yes there is vaccine called DTap ( only the pertusis component load is low and is acellular) the main advantage is that this injection causes much less pain compared to DTP and also the magnitude of side effects like excessive crying and swelling of the infection site are also less.. and now a days thinner needles are being used to make it much painless..

coming to fever component, its not a bad thing.. now it is beyond doubt that after a vaccination if fever occurs it is an indication that vaccine was taken up and body is building a good defence against these diseases, so even fever medications are not adviced unless fever is very high so that is not an issue to worry about..

Hi,

Thanks for writing to health care magic.

The most important difference between both is DTaP (the painless vaccine that you are taking about) causes less pain and fever.

Other than this there is no difference between those two.

DTaP is a costly vaccine.

So if you can afford it and you want your baby to have less fever and pain you can go for DTaP

If you cannot afford it you can control the fever and pain with paracetamol and go for DTwp

Hope this helps.
Take care.