Adverse effects of vaccinations

The adverse effects of vaccines include local reactions and systemic sympto ms or illnesses. Local reactions are frequent, most often presenting as tra nsient pain, redness, edema and/or nodule. Fever of short duration is the m ain systemic symptom, generally occurring within 24-48 hours following vacc ination. Some vaccines have recognized specific adverse effects such as thr ombocytopenic purpura for the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, and febrile co nvulsions for the pertussis vaccine. Hepatitis B vaccine and Haemophilus in fluenzae type b vaccine have been respectively suspected to be responsible for neurological demyelinating disease and insulin-dependent diabetes melli tus, but large-scale epidemiological studies have failed to confirm these a llegations. (C) 2001 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.