A study aiming to estimate the risk of febrile seizures and epilepsy after DTaP-IPV-Hib vaccination given at 3, 5, and 12 month old kids has recently concluded that the combined diphtheria-tetanus toxoids-acellular pertussis-inactivated poliovirus-Haemophilus influenza type b (DTaP-IPV-Hib) vaccine is associated with a small increased risk of febrile seizures on the day of the first and second vaccinations.
Yuelian Sun, PhD, of Aarhus University in Denmark, and colleagues are the authors of this study on 378,834 children born in Denmark from 2003 through 2008. The kids were followed through 2009.
Researchers has pointed out that babies who got a single shot that included vaccines against tetanus and whooping cough were at higher risk of having a fever-related seizure. In fact, in Denmark, the child vaccination schedule calls for a combined vaccine given at three, five and 12 months of age against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough (pertussis), polio and Haemophilus influenzae type 2, known collectively as DTap-IPV-Hib. Following this combined vaccinnation schedule, the researchers found that over the week after getting any of their shots, babies weren’t more likely to have a febrile seizure than they were during any other week.
Up to seven years after getting their shots, vaccinated kids didn’t have any extra risk of being diagnosed with epilepsy, Sun’s team reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
In conclusion of the study’s authors, DTaP-IPV-Hib vaccination was associated with an increased risk of febrile seizures on the day of the first 2 vaccinations given at 3 and 5 months, although the absolute risk was small. Vaccination with DTaP-IPV-Hib was not associated with an increased risk of epilepsy.