Post 01021E : T SERIES VACCINE EFFICACY

POST 01021E : T SERIES VACCINE EFFICACY 6 December 2006 ____________________________________ Jedeth Mamora (mailto:[email protected]) from UNICEF in Indonesia, is asking questions on the efficacy of T series vaccine. I wonder how the search was made on the WHO site but I would suggest the WHO modules "Immunological Basis for Immunization" One of the eight modules is on tetanus and I believe that answers can be found there, at http://www.who.int/vaccines-documents/DoxTrng/h4tibi.htm Can other members make any other suggestion and/or provide answers? ____________________________________ Dear Technet 21, I am curious and a little bit confused to know about the length of effectivity of DPT, DT and TT vaccines. I have read some of the related vaccination literatures, which merely mention the periods of administration of the said vaccines without explaning deeply on the length of effect of vaccines in the body (immunology). For example: DPT1-3, given to a baby age 6, 10 and 14 weeks old; DT at grade 1 to 3 primary school and again for WRA roughly age between 15 to 45 years to get TT1-TT5; a need of DT booster at every 5 to 10 years periodically regardless of the receiver age and gender. So, I want to know how is this Tetanus vaccine effectively work in the immune body system, how long the memory T cell retains the Tetanus ID before it forgets, and why do so many scholarly literatures (I refer it to reliable websites such as: Mayo Clinic, UNICEF, WHO , John Hopkins, and PATH) did not mention a sort of 'standard' of quantity of tetanus vaccine should a person receive from baby to old age. To make it clearer if a woman receives TT1-TT5, the length of protection of the vaccine for the body is 30 years (or what Indonesian translation said if TT5 then it will protect the body forever or as long as the person lives.) How to justify if a DT booster has to be administered every 5 to 10 years regardless of someone's age and gender. Both TT and DT contains Tetanus vaccine, but why has to be different, is not TT5 protection level of 30 years, why need another booster? Do TT differ from DT and DPT in terms of doses administered to the body which may give varied effectivity? I need to understand how this particular Tetanus vaccine works. How is it related with the prevailing bacteria Clostridium tetani in soil that never could be eliminated compared to other VPD's such as Polio and Measles? If you could not give much answers, perhaps someone could refer me to other credible website (s) that could give answer to most of the questions. Thank you and kind regards, JJ Jedeth Jenefa Mamora, MPH EPI Asistant Project Officer Health & Nutrition Dept Banda Aceh Zone Office Indonesia ______________________________________________________________________________ All members of the TechNet21 e-Forum are invited to send comments on any posting or to use the forum to raise a new discussion or request technical information in relation to immunization services. The comments made in this forum are the sole responsibility of the writers and do not in any way mean that they are endorsed by any of the organizations and agencies to which the authors may belong. ______________________________________________________________________________ Visit the TECHNET21 Website at http://www.technet21.org You will find instructions to subscribe, a direct access to archives, links to reference documents and other features. ______________________________________________________________________________ To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message to : mailto:[email protected] Leave the subject area BLANK In the message body, write unsubscribe TECHNET21E ______________________________________________________________________________ The World Health Organization and UNICEF support TechNet21. The TechNet21 e-Forum is a communication/information tool for generation of ideas on how to improve immunization services. It is moderated by Claude Letarte and is hosted in cooperation with the Centre de coopération internationale en santé et développement, Québec, Canada (http://www.ccisd.org) ______________________________________________________________________________