Skip section navigation (navigation may have changed)
Section navigation
http://www.girlshealth.gov/
Parents & Caregivers
Immunizations for Adolescents
Regularly Scheduled Vaccines are Important
Disease prevention is important to keep a body healthy. Vaccines protect both the person who has received the vaccine and others who may come into contact with that person. Vaccines help prevent infections and save lives. They are responsible for the control of many infectious diseases that were once common, including polio, measles, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), rubella (German measles), mumps, tetanus, and the flu.
As a parent, you already work hard to keep your child healthy and safe. You probably remember taking your infant to well-baby visits at the doctor’s office where he or she received vaccines. But immunizations aren’t finished when your child starts kindergarten. Many adolescents do not receive their recommended immunizations, even though four highly-recommended vaccines can protect kids from some serious, and possibly deadly, diseases.
For pre-teen and adolescent girls, these four vaccinations are recommended:
- Tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis vaccine (Tdap)
- Meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MCV4)
- Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine
- Influenza (flu) vaccine (once a year between September and January)
Detailed information about vaccines for pre-teens is available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An updated vaccination schedule for young people aged 7 – 18 is also available. If your daughter did not receive her childhood vaccines on time, her doctor may suggest she “catch up” and receive the missing vaccines as an adolescent. Additional resources, including frequently asked questions about vaccines, are also available.
How Do Vaccines Work?
You may be wondering exactly how vaccines work. First, a weakened form of the disease germ is injected into the patient’s body. Then, the patient’s body uses its own antibodies to fight against this weakened germ. Finally, if the actual germ ever enters the person’s body, the body is already prepared to fight against it and the antibodies will destroy the invading germs.
Parental Concerns About Vaccines
Some parents wonder why their children need to be vaccinated against diseases that don’t seem to exist. Others wonder if vaccinating their daughters against human papillomavirus (HPV) is necessary if she isn’t yet sexually active.
The fact is: these vaccines can prevent dangerous, even life-threatening, illnesses. Even though your pre-teen or adolescent daughter may have been vaccinated against some bacteria or viruses during childhood — such as tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, meningitis, or the flu — immunity from these vaccines can fade over time. It’s recommended that pre-teens and adolescents receive another dose at their 11- or 12-year-old check-up to boost immunity. If your child did not get the four recommended vaccines at ages 11 or 12, you can still schedule an appointment to get them now.
Some people worry that vaccines can cause autism. Comprehensive research has shown there is no link between vaccines and autism. Your pre-teen or teenager cannot develop autism from vaccines received in adolescence. Learn more about autism and vaccines.
Why the HPV vaccine is important
Genital HPV is a common virus that is passed on through genital contact, most often during sex. Most sexually active people will get HPV at some time in their lives, though most will never even know it. It is most common in people in their late teens and early 20s.
There are about 40 types of HPV that can infect the genital areas of men and women. Most HPV types cause no symptoms and go away on their own. But some types can cause cervical cancer in women and other less common genital cancers — like cancers of the anus, vagina, and vulva (the area around the opening of the vagina). Other types of HPV can cause genital warts in both men and woman.
Ideally, girls should get the vaccine before they become sexually active, when they may be exposed to HPV. Therefore, the HPV vaccine is recommended for 11- and 12-year-old girls. It is also recommended for girls and women ages 13 to 26 who have not yet been vaccinated or who have not finished the vaccine series. The HPV vaccine can be safely given to girls as young as nine years old.
The HPV vaccine is recommended as a three-dose vaccine. It is not yet known how much protection girls/women would get if they receive only one or two doses of the vaccine. For this reason, it is very important that girls/women get all three doses of the vaccine.
Girls who are already sexually active may get less benefit from the vaccine. This is because they may have already gotten an HPV type targeted by the vaccine. Few sexually active girls or young women are infected with all of the HPV types covered by the vaccine, so these girls would still get protection from those types they have not yet gotten. Currently, there is no test available to tell if a girl or woman has had HPV in the past, or which types.
It is not known if the vaccine is effective in boys or men. Researchers are looking into whether the vaccine works to prevent HPV infection and disease in males. Right now, there is no approved test to find HPV in boys or men.
More information on the HPV vaccine is available through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Content last updated February 3, 2009
