It is important to know how vaccines act at the cellular level, to better understand vaccination plans and to be able to reason in the event of catch-up vaccination. The most important thing to remember is that 2 close in time doses are often needed to induce basic immunity (priming), and to wait 4-6 months before giving a booster dose. In fact, it’s essential to wait long enough between the primary and secondary doses for the memory of the B and T cells to mature and become highly specific for the antigen in question. Then, the booster dose increases the pool of these high-quality cells, which will be able to be rapidly reactivated in the event of infections.

It’s also essential to be familiar with the annual updates to the Swiss vaccination plan, and to understand the adaptations for special populations groups such as premature infants or immunosuppressed children. In this seminar, we address all these issues.