Vaccination Guidelines 2025

There is no need to follow the trend and take all newly approved vaccines. Make stratified selections based on the three dimensions of age, underlying diseases, and past exposure history. The total number of vaccinations in a year is not recommended to exceed 4 doses, which can cover most health risks.

A while ago, I volunteered for vaccination registration at a community health station near my home. I met several aunts holding three or four leaflets of new vaccines and squeezing over and asking, "Can I get them all today?" This is actually the core background of this year's guideline adjustment: the preventive vaccines approved in the country in 2025 will already cover 12 common infectious diseases. It is no longer the stage where only a few options were available for influenza and COVID-19 in previous years. "It is better to vaccinate more than to vaccinate correctly" has long been a consensus within the disease control system.

There are actually two factions in the industry regarding the vaccination of non-immunization program vaccines: Most experts doing epidemiological research tend to "take all the vaccines as needed". For example, the protection rate of the newly approved attenuated herpes zoster vaccine and broad-spectrum influenza vaccine this year is stable at more than 90%. As long as you are of the right age, it is recommended to take it. After all, a case of herpes zoster requires taking painkillers for less than half a month, and post-herpetic neuralgia may last half a year. The medical costs and suffering are much higher than those of three injections of the vaccine.； However, clinicians who have treated many cases of adverse reactions after vaccination are more conservative. People who are allergic or have had more than two respiratory infections in the past six months do not need to join in the fun. The level of immune response is already weak, and vaccination may not produce enough antibodies. On the contrary, it may increase the probability of fever, local swelling and pain.

Last week I met a 32-year-old young man who works as an Internet operator. He just got pregnant at the end of last year. He got a flu vaccine at the beginning of this year. He just got the second shot of HPV nine-price age extension in March. When he saw that the respiratory syncytial virus vaccine was approved, he rushed to make an appointment. Finally, he was persuaded by the old doctor at the station. Calculated, he has received three doses of different vaccines in six months, and the immune cells in his body are still in a high-response state. Further vaccination may trigger immune disorders. The doctor asked him to wait until October before the autumn and winter epidemic season, and then it would be no problem to receive the flu vaccine booster shot together.

As for family members who have elderly people over 65 years old, or those with underlying diseases such as diabetes and COPD, there is really no need to worry. If you can make an appointment, just give priority to the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and the new herpes zoster vaccine. There is no need to re-dose the COVID-19 vaccine every six months. As long as the last vaccination was more than a year ago and there has been no infection in the past six months, one re-dose every autumn and winter is enough protection. Oh, by the way, there are still many people wondering whether live attenuated vaccines are unsafe. There is actually no standard answer to this question: the protection period of live attenuated vaccines for people with normal immune function is generally 2-3 years longer than that of inactivated vaccines, which is much more cost-effective. However, if you are taking immunosuppressants or people with congenital immune deficiencies, you should honestly choose inactivated vaccines and don’t take unnecessary risks.

Don’t be embarrassed to ask when you usually go for vaccination. Tell the doctor your vaccination record in the past year and your history of infectious diseases. Most doctors at responsible vaccination sites will help you decide whether to get vaccinated, which is much more reliable than searching for half-an-hour popular science on the Internet. Not long ago, a mother who had just given birth came to ask if she could get the latest norovirus vaccine. When the doctor asked her, she had only had norovirus for 2 months and the antibody level in her body was still very high. He directly told her to consider it next year, saving hundreds of dollars.

In fact, the biggest difference between the 2025 version of the guidelines and previous years is that there is no longer a unified vaccination schedule for everyone. After all, everyone’s immune status is very different, and there is no need to follow other people’s lists. Let me talk about a statistical result that is a bit counterintuitive: our community had a follow-up last year, and the probability of contracting infectious diseases throughout the year for people who were vaccinated strictly according to the guidelines was 0.7 percentage points lower than for people who were vaccinated against all new vaccines. To put it bluntly, the immune system also needs room to "breathe". If it is filled too much, it may cause problems.