What is DPT?

DPT is short-hand for a vaccine which immunizes against three serious bacterial diseases: diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus (lockjaw). It was introduced in 1946 as the first combination vaccine. The DPT vaccine is credited with significantly decreasing the occurrence of these diseases and the thousands of yearly fatalities previously associated with them.

Identification

• Diphtheria can cause inability to breathe, paralysis, or heart failure. It is fatal in about 10 percent of cases. In the 1920s it caused about 15,000 deaths each year, until an immunization against it was developed.

Types

• Almost all children used to get the highly-contagious pertussis. For healthy teenagers and adults, it usually causes a chronic but sometimes severe cough, which can last for several months. The disease makes babies and small children extremely sick, with repeated episodes of violent coughing that can cause vomiting and difficulty breathing. It is fatal in about 1 of 200 cases, and another 1 in 200 will suffer permanent brain damage. About half of the babies and children who contract pertussis require hospitalization for pneumonia or other complications.

Significance

• The bacterium Clostridium tetani is common in soil, and when it gets into an open wound, can develop into an infection causing muscle spasms severe enough to result in bone fractures. Even today, about 30 percent of people who develop tetanus die from the disease.

Function

• Immunization is based on the theory that the immune system recognizes and battles a disease it has encountered previously. Thus, exposing a baby or young child to an extremely mild and very safe amount of a virus or bacterium will immunize the child against it. He or she will not become infected, or else will have a relatively mild infection.

Considerations

• Common side effects from the DPT vaccine are redness and soreness at the injection site, and some children get a fever and do not feel well for a day or two. Moderate reactions occur in about 1 of 100 children including a high fever and long bouts of crying. About 1 in 140,000 children have severe neurological reactions within a few weeks or months of receiving the vaccine, including seizures, serious allergic reactions, coma, or even death. Researchers have had difficulty definitively linking these instances to the vaccination, because the ratio is the same for these issues occurring for other reasons. Doctors also theorize that children who have adverse reactions to the vaccine would have the most serious reactions to the actual disease.

Expert Insight

• Severe neurological damage or death following a DPT injection or other vaccinations have led to a concerned faction of parents working to raise awareness of the dangers of vaccines. Physicians who advocate vaccines emphasize the rarity of these instances, and point to the enormous decrease in contagious and serious diseases since vaccines have been introduced.