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DPT, (sometimes DTP) is a mixture of three vaccines, to immunize against diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus.

DTP vaccine may be distinguished as "DTwP" and "DTaP", with "wP" referring to "whole cell pertussis" and "aP" referring to "acellular pertussis". (The acellular form is considered safer and contains far fewer antigens than the older preparation.) Current versions of DTP in Europe do not contain preservatives; older ones contained Thiomersal.

Moderate reactions to DPT vaccines occur in 0.1% to 1.0% of children and include ongoing crying (for three hours or more), a high fever (up to 40 °C / 105 °F), and an unusual, high-pitched crying.

Severe problems closely following DPT immunization happen very rarely. These include a serious allergic reaction, prolonged seizures, a decrease in consciousness, lasting brain disease, or even death. Such severe neurologic events occur after approximately 1 in 140,000 doses of the DPT vaccine (0.0007%). Most of the reactions to DPT injection are thought to be from the pertussis component.

In 1994, the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences published a report stating that if the first symptoms of neurological damage occurred within the first seven days following vaccination with whole-cell pertussis vaccine, the evidence was compatible with the possibility that it could be the cause of permanent brain damage in otherwise apparently healthy children. It continued by stating:

This serious acute neurologic response to DPT is a rare event. The estimated excess risk ranged from 0 to 10.5 per million immunizations (IOM, 1991). The committee stresses that this is not the strongest statement regarding causality; the evidence does not "establish" or "prove" a causal relation....

The evidence remains insufficient to indicate the presence or absence of a causal relation between DPT and chronic nervous system dysfunction under any other circumstances. That is, because the NCES is the only systematic study of chronic nervous system dysfunctions after DPT, the committee can only comment on the causal relation between DPT and those chronic nervous system dysfunctions under the conditions studied by the NCES. In particular, it should be noted that the chronic nervous system dysfunctions associated with DPT followed a serious acute neurologic illness that occurred in children within 7 days after receiving DPT.^[1]

A safer acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP) was introduced in the US in 1991; since 2002, whole-cell pertussis vaccines are no longer used in the US.

The usual course of immunisation is five doses between 2 months and 15 years.

• Price's textbook of the practice of medicine. ISBN 0194423441
• "Immunisation Against Infectious Disease". (1996). - The Green Book. (with updates) Department of Health (United Kingdom). [1]