Vaccination in patients with chronic or autoimmune rheumatic diseases: The ego, the id and the superego

摘要

Vaccines have significantly improved the prevention against infectious diseases, especially in specific groups of patients such as the elderly and immune-compromised patients. In this view, the role of vaccines in patients with autoimmune diseases (AD) has changed the occurrence of potentially threatening concurrent infectious diseases [1].The history of vaccines goes back to 1798, when Edwards Jen-ner inoculated 12 people with cowpox material and prevented the deadly disease, smallpox. Currently, millions of children and adults are immunized regularly and it is evident that the benefits of preventing suffering and death from infectious diseases outweigh the adverse effects of immunization.