Vaccinations are an important part of prophylactic actions to protect health. Within our framework of comprehensive medical care, we offer our Members the following vaccinations:
- Vaccinations against influenza: Each Medicover Member is entitled to a free-of-charge vaccination against flu - more
- Vaccinations against hepatitis A and B: during the “Yellow Week” in Poland, Medicover card holders can take advantage of our special offer for vaccinations against hepatitis A and B - more
- Vaccinations for travellers: At the Atrium Medicover Centre in Warsaw, we have launched an on-call service called the Travel Medicine Doctor, who can refer you for the required and recommended vaccinations before you depart to a specific country - more
- We coordinate vaccinations for children.
Write to us! If you have any questions concerning vaccinations at Medicover, please contact us at dok@medicover.pl
Worth knowing
Below, we have prepared for you some interesting information on the history, methods, and types of vaccinations. We invite you to read it!
History of vaccinations in brief.
For centuries, infectious diseases were a major threat to people. Therefore, many scientists strived to find a way to prevent them.
In 1798, Edward Jenner came up with the idea how one disease could be used to fight another much more serious disease. In those times people were decimated by epidemics of smallpox. However, Jenner noticed that women who milked cows did not contract this disease. He was able to establish that they had earlier contracted another form of it from animals, called cow-pox, which effectively immunised them against smallpox. This was how one of the most effective vaccines in the world was created.
Following several years of experience with the use of vaccinations, the French chemist Luis Pasteur worked on a vaccine against rabies. He succeeded in separating an attenuated strain of the virus responsible for this disease. The first results of tests conducted on animals were very promising. But only in 1885 did Pasteur vaccinate a small boy who was bitten by a rabid dog. The attempt was successful: the boy who had been condemned to death survived. Vaccination consists in administering dead or live non-virulent micro-organisms to incite a specific immunological reaction. Following contact between the immunological system cells and antigens of bacteria or viruses contained in the vaccine, the immunological system learns to recognise them, eliminates them, and “remembers” them for the future. Immunity produced in this manner may in some cases last a lifetime, or can be easily renewed by revaccination.
Vaccines are classified as:
Live attenuated (non-virulent) vaccines: these vaccines contain live micro-organisms which are very weak pathogens or are even non-pathogenic but retain their antigenic properties.
- Live bacterial vaccines, e.g. vaccines against tuberculosis (BCG).
- Live viral vaccines, e.g. vaccines against measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, yellow fever, and poliomyelitis.
Inactivated vaccines: vaccines containing micro-organisms (or fragments) killed by heat, chemical substances, or radiation.
- Killed bacterial vaccines, e.g. vaccines against cholera and typhoid fever.
- Killed viral vaccines, vaccines against rabies and poliomyelitis.
Inactivated vaccines also include those which contain fragments of micro-organisms:
- Recombinant vaccines contain a selected antigen or antigens of the pathogenic micro-organism, those responsible for immunisation, e.g. vaccines against hepatitis B and influenza.
- Polysaccharide vaccines contain polysaccharide coatings of the specific micro-organism bound to a protein, e.g. the vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae type B
Anatoxins (toxoids): vaccines containing processed toxic particles of micro-organisms (exotoxins) devoid of toxic properties and retaining antigenic properties.
- Anatoxins against diphtheria and tetanus
On the basis of specificity, we classify vaccines as:
Monovalent vaccines, which contain one type of micro-organism or antigens originating from one micro-organism, immunising against one disease.
Polyvalent (combined) vaccines, which contain more than one type of micro-organism or antigen originating from various micro-organisms or a combination of a micro-organism with an antigen originating from another micro-organism. This type of vaccines provides immunity against several diseases at the same time, e.g. DiTePer, DiTe. The use of polyvalent vaccines is important because they allow the number of injections to be reduced, thus simplifying the vaccination calendar.