Some years ago, when my kids were little, we were in the pediatrician’s office and he was about to give my daughter an oral polio vaccine and I commented that I would probably need to get my wife vaccinated too. At that moment he paused and said that he couldn’t give the vaccine until several weeks after my wife got a polio shot, because there would be a danger to my wife from the oral vaccine given to our daughter.
Patients given weakened oral polio vaccines shed viruses can infect people who do not have immunity. In the USA virtually everyone has had polio shots or oral vaccines and there aren’t that many people who haven’t had any vaccine, so it’s not a problem. My wife, foreign born and raised, never had any childhood immunizations (she does now).
So we went and got my wife immunized and then were cleared for the vaccines for my daughter.
I wonder how this H1N1 oral vaccine works. If it follows the normal route of oral weakened virus systems, will the vaccinated person be giving H1N1 to all their friends?
Yes. Recipients of the nasal spray vaccine will shed the virus for up to seven days, thus possibly transmitting the virus to anyone in contact.
Naturally, no one who receives the nasal spray vaccine will be ‘isolated’ for the seven days that they will be shedding the virus, so they will possibly be giving it to anyone around them who would not normally be exposed to it.
Apparently the injected vaccine doesn’t do the same thing. It will just damage the person injected.