Can children eat before taking sugar pills?

When you go to the health center for a vaccination, the doctor will give you a milky white candy. When children eat this candy, it melts in their mouths and tastes sweet and full of milky flavor. Sometimes they even hope to be given a few more. In fact, this kind of candy cannot be eaten too much. If you eat too much, it is very bad for your body. This is a medicine, not common candy. What exactly is a sugar pill and when is the best time to eat it?

What is a sugar pill?

The sugar pill is an oral attenuated live polio vaccine, abbreviated as OPV. The sugar pills look like milk fudge and smell like milk. Sugar pills are made by rolling liquid vaccine into sugar using milk powder, cream, glucose and other materials as excipients. This vaccine has been used in our country for many years. Sugar pills are national immunization program vaccines, provided free of charge by the government. Children are given one dose orally when they are 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, and 4 years old.

Oral sugar pills are live attenuated vaccines, which are made from live viruses with reduced pathogenicity. Another injectable vaccine with the same efficacy is the inactivated vaccine, which is a vaccine made from dead viruses. The virus is completely killed through an advanced inactivation process while maintaining its antigenicity, giving it the advantage of good safety. The occurrence of vaccine-related paralysis incidents can be completely prevented. The vaccine IPV is now a Category II vaccine and needs to be paid for by the baby. One dose is given each at 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, and 18 months after the baby is born.

Whether it is oral sugar pills or injection of inactivated polio vaccine, it is generally safe and effective. However, since the sugar pills contain live viruses that are not heat-resistant, they cannot be taken with hot water to avoid inactivating the viruses in the vaccine and making it ineffective. In addition, children with weak or defective immune systems, as well as children receiving immunosuppressants and those who have suffered from perianal abscesses, are recommended to be given priority for inactivated polio vaccine IPV. IPV is not recommended for those who have received OPV in the past.

When to take sugar pills

Sugar pills are an edible vaccine. Vaccinations have a specified time and correct method. So when should sugar pills be taken? Let’s take a look at the time to take the sugar pills.

Infants should start taking one pill of the trivalent mixed sugar pill vaccine 2 months after birth, and take one pill each at 3 and 4 months, that is, three doses within 1 year old, with each dose not less than 28 days apart, and another pill at 4 years old, which can basically prevent polio.

How to take sugar pills? Generally, you should not drink milk or water half an hour before and after taking sugar pills. Do not take sugar pills with hot water. The sugar pill is a live attenuated virus that is very afraid of heat and will die quickly at 50 degrees. If the sugar pill live vaccine is soaked in hot water before taking, or taken with hot water, the virus in the vaccine will die quickly due to the high water temperature, and the vaccine will lose its effectiveness.

To ensure the effectiveness of the medicine, younger children should first crush the sugar pill with a spoon or chopsticks, or dissolve the sugar pill in cold boiled water with a spoon; older children can swallow it directly. Do not dissolve it in hot water or mix it with other beverages before taking it, so as not to kill the vaccine virus and affect the immune effect.