Antibodies against whooping cough may not be found even a year after vaccination. The expert explains why it doesn’t matter and how she would get revaccinated

In the interview you will learn, among other things:

• How do you know if it’s time to get revaccinated?
• Why are vaccinologists backing away from much stronger vaccines and using weaker ones instead?
• What new vaccines are currently in the works and which ones look promising?
• Why can’t we reliably measure the level of antibodies against whooping cough?
• Are there vaccinations after which immunity lasts for a lifetime?
• What would be the burden on the individual and the whole system if we did not vaccinate with combination vaccines?

Whooping cough has been spreading in the Czech Republic for several months. What is the best way to proceed in such situations?

We should start by checking the vaccination certificate and thinking about whether we have encountered or passed through any of the vaccinated diseases. Alternatively, it is possible to discuss everything with the practitioner, and if we come to the conclusion that we have had pertussis (technical name for whooping cough, editor’s note) in this season, there is no point in addressing vaccination at this time.

It is also important to consider your health status and diagnoses that could lead to an increased risk of a severe course of a disease that can be prevented by vaccination. If I am diabetic, suffer from cardiovascular disease, have suppressed immunity, undergo biological treatment, etc., it is necessary to discuss the next procedure with a specialist.

If I am a healthy person with no major risks, it is appropriate to have my antibody levels measured and decide on vaccination based on the results.

The topic of the evaporation of antibodies also came up with whooping cough. What is the difference between getting sick and being vaccinated for the immune system?

A bacterium that causes a certain disease has a huge number of antigenic stimuli. When a person encounters a disease in the field, he reacts comprehensively to all of them and creates antibodies against them.

During vaccination, we try to artificially induce a situation in the organism where the immune system should respond to the antigenic stimulus of the pathogen. We are gradually training him to be able to create antibodies and to react quickly and effectively in the event that he encounters an infection, so that we do not get sick. In vaccination, however, we usually select only some parts of the bacteria or virus, and the immune response is thus not so comprehensive.

So, when experiencing a disease, the body will immediately make antibodies to all antigens related to the disease, while as part of the vaccination I will only receive selected antigens for which the body will make antibodies, and the missing ones will be completed only when it encounters the disease?

Basically yes. But it always depends on whether we used a whole-cell or acellular vaccine. A whole-cell vaccine is actually a significantly weakened bacterial culture modified so that it cannot induce disease symptoms. With an acellular vaccine, we purposefully choose a certain antigenic structure, and antibodies are formed only against this structure.

This is the case, for example, with the pertussis vaccination: depending on the vaccine used, we have either three or five of these components, whereas in reality the bacterium has hundreds of antigens. But we are mainly concerned with the pertussis toxin component, against which we must primarily train the immune system so that it can react correctly when encountering bacteria.

Against which diseases is a whole-cell vaccine normally vaccinated, and against which a limited acellular one?

The trend is to abandon whole-cell vaccines, even though they have higher immunogenicity (the ability to trigger an immune system response, editor’s note) even a protective effect and the antibodies created in this way last longer. But it is less