What are the side effects of polio vaccines?
OPV has minimum side effects. It can lead to GI upset like diarrhea, vomiting. It does not lead to fever. Most of the side effects seen with OPV +DPT are due to the DPT vaccine. The most important but extremely rare side effect with OPV is vaccine associated paralysis (VAP). It occurs in 1 in million doses. Massive benefits of OPV far outweigh the rare risk of paralysis. In west, though, it can become a medico -legal problem. Hence in west, people use first IPV to induce systemic antibodies & then use OPV, which will ead to local gut immunity without the risk of vaccine induced paralysis due to the partial immunity conferred by prior IPV.
