Vaccine Fever Risk

Fever risk is a little higher when children are given flu vaccine and pneumococcal vaccines at the same time.There is a new study published yesterday showing something that I've noticed in practice. The researchers found that children in the study developed a fever 37% of the time when they were given the flu vaccine at the same time as the pneumococcal vaccine ("pneumonia vaccine"). If given separately, children only developed a fever about 10% of the time for either vaccine. The fever only lasted 1-2 days and was usually low-grade, but this is valuable information for patients who have a history of febrile seizures or other conditions where developing a fever could cause problems.The pneumococcal vaccine is usually given at 2, 4, 6, and 12 months of age. So if you are very concerned about a fever in your child after the flu vaccine you can always talk to us about scheduling the flu vaccine separately from the 6-month, or 12-month vaccines...Here is a link to a summary of the study.Here is a link to the original article.