Study on the pattern of adverse events following immunization in children aged ≤6 years: A single-center experience

Adverse Events Following Immunization Among Children Under Two Years of Age: A Prospective Observational Study From North India

“…Overall Pentavalent + OPV (48.8 per 100 doses) was majorly responsible for AEFI followed by DPT + MR + OPV (46.6 per 100 doses) which is consistent with the findings of other studies [ 20 , 21 ]. In the present study, no AEFI was reported after BCG + hepatitis B + OPV while in a study by Badur et al, 35.5% AEFI were reported; this significant difference in the AEFI rate as compared to our study could be on account of the other study having a large sample size (20,414 children) with the study sample including about 70% children receiving BCG + hepatitis B + OPV vaccine [ 21 ].…”

“…These results were expected, as maximum doses of vaccines according to National Immunization Schedule are given in this age group. The results are comparable to a study by Aherkar et al and Badur et al, where the most common age group was less than nine months and one year respectively [ 18 , 21 ]. The studies by Patel et al, Cunha et al, and Dey et al, also reported the most common age group for AEFI occurrence to be less than one year [ 23 - 25 ].…”

“…In our study, of the total AEFI, the most common was fever (47.6%), followed by swelling at the injection site (25.0 %) as in previously published studies [18,20,21].…”

“…The incidence of AEFI in our study was 33.3 per 100 doses of all vaccines which was significantly high when compared to that reported by Aherkar et al (8.61 per 100 doses), Sebastian et al (13.7%) and Badur et al (13.6/10,000 doses) [ 18 , 20 , 21 ]. In a study by Patel et al, the AEFI rate was 8.3 per 100,000 doses [ 23 ] and Danova et al reported an AEFI rate of 209 per 100000 doses [ 26 ].…”

“…In India, a limited number of studies on AEFI were found and they were mainly hospital or record-based, and none was from Uttarakhand [17][18][19][20][21]. Hence, the present community-based study aims to study the adverse events following immunization among children less than two years of age receiving vaccines under a routine immunization program.…”