Memorandum on immunological procedures which service personnel and their families may need at home and abroad.

  • Great Britain. Ministry of Defence.
Date:
1968
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memorandum on immunological procedures which service personnel and their families may need at home and abroad. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/132 (page 10)
    (3) Children. Children with active, or a history of, infantile eczema should not be vaccinated. Special precautions must also be taken to keep such children well away from contact with recently vaccinated subjects, especially their siblings. (4) Vaccination during treatment. Vaccination should not be carried out in a person undergoing treatment with cortisone or other corticosteroid drug. (e) When vaccinating against smallpox and against yellow fever are both required (1) Adults and children more than one year old. Yellow fever vaccine should be given first. Vaccination or revaccination against smallpox may then follow after an interval of not less than four days. {f for any reason primary vaccination against smallpox, or revaccination which is followed by a primary type of response, has been carried out first, yellow fever vaccine must not be given until twenty-one days have elapsed. (2) Infants under one year old. Infants less than one year old should not normally be vaccinated against yellow fever (para 15(c)). If, however, this becomes necessary in particular circumstances there must be an interval of at least twenty-one days between vaccination against smallpox and vaccination against yellow fever no matter which is given first (para 189). 10 Diphtheria (see section 10) (a) Owing to the prevalence of diphtheria in certain overseas theatres, all officers and other ranks of the Army and R.A.F. will, on joining, be tested for susceptibility to this disease and if necessary be immunized against it. Children should be fully immunized, particularly when proceeding outside the United Kingdom. (b) Procedure (1) Adults. On joining the Services a Schick test of suceptibility will be done. The test sites will be examined on the second or third day afterwards and again on the fifth to the seventh day. The earlier reading is necessary to detect pseudo-reactors who may react badly if given diphtheria prophylactics and should not be immunized. Those found positive and without a pseudo-reaction will be immunized by two injections of Formol Toxoid (F.T.) at not less than four weeks interval. A third injection will normally be required six to twelve months later. (2) Children. Children will generally be immunized against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, at the same time, by the use of the combined vaccine Diphtheria-Tetanus- Pertussis prophylactic (D.T.P.). The first of four doses of this vaccine should be given at the age of six months. Maintenance doses will be with Diphtheria-Tetanus prophylactic (D.T.) and are required at school entry and at eight years of age. Immunization of children up to twelve years of age may be started without preliminary Schick testing. 11 Tuberculosis (see section 11) (a) Vaccination (1) All entrants to the Army and R.A.F., personnel of Gurkha units and their families, St. John and the British Red Cross Society Service Hospital Welfare Officers, S.S.A.F.A. Sisters, medical and nursing ancillaries and others who will be working with patients are to be tuberculin tested and negative reactors vaccinated against tuberculosis. (2) Service personnel or members of their families who are known contacts of