Background
Vaccination is the most remarkable intervention in public health and is an effective strategy in order to control infectious diseases among infants. This study attempted to compare the adverse events of Pentavalent and DPT vaccines together.
Methods
This is a cross sectional (analytical-descriptive) study in which the 2-6 months healthy infants, having received DPT in 2013 and Pentavalent in 2015, were studied for their experienced adverse events related to these vaccines. Percentage, mean, standard deviation and chi-square tests were used to describe and analyze the data.
Results
The results showed that 10464 and 17561 adverse events, which are associated with DPT and Pentavalent respectively, were recorded in the infants who received these vaccines throughout Iran. Mazandaran, Qazvin and Golestan provinces reported the highest number of adverse events, respectively (15.74%, 11.25%, and 9.12%). Moreover, Pentavalent seemed to have more recorded adverse events compared to DPT, high fever had the highest record rate for DPT (47.4%) and mild localized complications was the highest for Pentavalent (31.68%). There was a significant relationship between the kind of vaccine and the type of reaction, adverse event categorization, the country produced the vaccine and the infants' place of residence (p<0.05).
Conclusion
Severe localized adverse events including high fever, vomiting, diarrhea and restlessness seemed to be less in Pentavalent compared to DPT vaccine. Therefore, substituting Pentavalent for DPT in infants seems to reduce the adverse events among them.