Conjugate vaccines

[JAG10]

Can someone please explain to me (simply if possible) what a conjugate vaccine is?

 

Are these the only conjugate vaccines currently "on schedule": Hib, PCV7 (after 2000) or PCV13 (after 2006?) and MCV4

So that's Haemophilus influenzae type b, pneumococcal vaccines and meninggococcal vaccines? Anything else?

 

What about voluntary vaccines? Which ones are conjugate?

 

If your child had a failed response to Hib and PCV7, doesn't that make MCV4 even scarier than non-conjugate vaccines?

 

Maybe I'm just really confused on the issue....

[kim]

Jag,

 

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/vaccines/understanding/pages/typesvaccines.aspx#conjugate

 

Conjugate Vaccines

If a bacterium possesses an outer coating of sugar molecules called polysaccharides, as many harmful bacteria do, researchers may try making a conjugate vaccine for it. Polysaccharide coatings disguise a bacterium’s antigens so that the immature immune systems of infants and younger children can’t recognize or respond to them. Conjugate vaccines, a special type of subunit vaccine, get around this problem.

 

When making a conjugate vaccine, scientists link antigens or toxoids from a microbe that an infant’s immune system can recognize to the polysaccharides. The linkage helps the immature immune system react to polysaccharide coatings and defend against the disease-causing bacterium.

 

The vaccine that protects against Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib) is a conjugate vaccine.

 

 

They don't say anything about the aluminum adjuvant in above excerpt

 

 

read page 20 of Prevnar 13 insert here it will explain how it constructed

 

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/biologicsbloodvaccines/vaccines/approvedproducts/ucm201669.pdf

[kim]

These two pages should be helpful too

 

Schedules

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/

 

All package inserts

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/