Is it true that getting vaccinated during an epidemic is prohibited?

There is an opinion that getting vaccinated during an epidemic or pandemic is ineffective and even dangerous. Its supporters point out that flu vaccination, for example, is carried out before a predicted outbreak of the disease, and in the history of medicine there has never been a situation when vaccination prevention began in the midst of an epidemic. We decided to check whether the arguments of the defenders of this position are correct and whether vaccination is dangerous during an epidemic.

Nikolai Malyshev, the chief infectious disease specialist in Moscow, was one of the first in the Russian-speaking space to speak out about the uselessness of vaccination during an epidemic in 2013. Speaking of the flu shot, he reported: “In general, no vaccinations are allowed in the midst of an epidemic.” Current opponents of vaccination, carried out in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, also refer to his words. For example, Nadezhda Shabashova, teacher at the Department of Clinical Mycology, Allergology and Immunology at Northwestern Medical University named after I. I. Mechnikov, speaks: “Doctors should know that people cannot be vaccinated during an epidemic, much less a pandemic.” A similar opinion at the end of 2020 also expressed* Lev Averbakh, head physician of the private emergency medical service “Coris”: “Getting vaccinated (vaccinated) in the midst of an epidemic of the disease against which one is being vaccinated is a big mistake. These are the basics of epidemiology and infectious diseases.” Not only doctors, but also journalists, social users networks And messengers. 

Vaccination can be preventive (the person is healthy, the goal is to develop immunity and prevent further infection) and therapeutic (the person is already sick, the vaccine can alleviate or stop the course of the disease). Preventive vaccination includes vaccinations against measles, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, etc. Therapeutic vaccination includes vaccinations against herpes Types I and II, currently under development vaccines for the treatment of viral hepatitis, HIV, HPV and tuberculosis, as well as some oncological diseases. Preventive vaccination, in turn, is divided into planned and emergency. The planned one is carried out within the time limits stipulated by the National calendar preventive vaccinations, and emergency vaccinations according to indications.

Emergency vaccination includes vaccination against tetanus for vaccinated and unvaccinated persons for wounds, injuries, burns, frostbite, bites and abortions and childbirth outside medical institutions, vaccination against rabies for animal bites, against ticks encephalitiswhen standard vaccination dates are missed. The list of diseases for which emergency vaccination is acceptable may also include included viral hepatitis A, shigellosis, typhoid fever, meningococcal, pneumococcal, rotavirus infections, chicken pox, measles, diphtheria, viral hepatitis B, whooping cough, rubella, mumps, anthrax, dysentery, tularemia. In the case of these diseases, even after the infectious agent enters the body, vaccination either prevents the development of the disease or allows it to be transferred in a milder form. From this alone we can conclude that vaccination is acceptable and effective even after contact with a sick person. However, we are not talking specifically about vaccinating healthy people during a pandemic and/or epidemic.

At the same time, the history of medicine knows many examples when vaccination was carried out during an epidemic and turned out to be effective. One of the oldest examples - variolation, and later vaccination, against smallpox in the Russian Empire, which began and took place right in the midst of the epidemic itself. Preventive vaccinations for children and adults have reduced the number of victims, slowed down the transmission of infection from sick to healthy, and ultimately allowed stop epidemic.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, a polio epidemic has raged in the United States. The disease primarily affected children, many of whom turned out to be completely or partially paralyzed, and among adults and adolescents mortality reached up to 30%. One of the most terrible consequences of the disease was paralysis of the respiratory muscles, which forced the patient to constantly or almost constantly be in a device first used for these purposes in 1952. apparatus - “iron lungs”. For example, Dianne Odell, who became ill at age three, spent inside the apparatus for 58 years almost without interruption, until she died due to the fact that during a power outage her “lungs” stopped working.

In 1952, polio got sick 57,628 people, of which 21,269 suffered paralysis, and 3,145 died. And in 1954, the Salk vaccine was released into mass experimental use. In the first year, 1.5 million children were vaccinated with it. As a result of an active vaccination campaign over ten years, the incidence of fell up to 910 people per year (that is, 63 times), and for 20 - up to 31 annual cases (that is, 1569 times).

More recently, in 2014, in West Africa there was registered Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreak. Scientists straightaway several countries began to develop a vaccine, and after receiving approval for it application - do vaccinations to the local population. In 2015, WHO announced about the end of the epidemic.

As can be seen from the history of medicine, vaccination at the height of an infectious disease was carried out more than once and always led to a significant improvement in the epidemiological situation. The same approach applies in the case of vaccination against coronavirus infection, and with vaccination against other infections amid a pandemic. Position WHO, CDC And Ministry of Health similar: despite the pandemic, vaccination against other diseases is necessary, including pneumococcus and whooping cough for vulnerable groups, as well as influenza. Vaccination against coronavirus carried out during a pandemic specialists think main means for victory over the disease.

Thus, the height of the coronavirus pandemic is not only not a reason to skip preventive vaccinations, but also not a reason to refuse vaccination against coronavirus infection, because, as history shows, this is the most effective way to put an end to the spread of infection.

*later he changed your opinion

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Is it true that it is safe to get vaccinated if you have antibodies after an illness?
2. Is it true that orphanages in the Russian Empire were created as a platform for an experiment on smallpox vaccination?
3. Mikhail Shifrin. 100 stories from the history of medicine. The greatest discoveries, exploits and crimes in the name of your health and longevity