Adverse reactions after childhood vaccination in the Czech Republic

1 ABSTRACT In the Czech Republic a complex study of adverse reactions after vaccination in children has not been presented yet. Even though reporting of serious adverse reactions to the State Institute for Drug Control (SUKL) is mandatory by law, it is seldom performed. Moreover, there is no analysis correlating adverse reactions that occurred at doctors` surgeries with actual reported adverse reactions to SUKL. The main focus of presented work was to analyze and map adverse reactions appearing after vaccinations from the children's vaccination schedule in the Czech Republic. The study was conducted in the form of retrospective-prospective questionnaires concentrating on adverse reactions, their occurrence, character, seriousness, duration and frequency. Furthermore, the questionnaires also focused on socio-demographic data such as gender, age, residency, parents' education, birth weight. Also, the refusal of the compulsory vaccination was assessed. Occurrence of adverse reactions after vaccination in the Czech Republic was analyzed by questionnaires in pediatricians' surgeries (active surveillance). Obtained data were correlated with data available at SUKL (passive surveillance). The study data showed higher number of collected adverse reactions that number of adverse reactions reported to national program..