Unit of Vaccines

The Vaccines and Immune Response Unit is made up of a multidisciplinary team from the Clínic Barcelona, whose members work together in the care, research and teaching of infectious diseases preventable through vaccination.

Vaccinology is a field of knowledge that has gained interest in recent decades, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, in which vaccines proved to be the great public health strategy for avoiding numerous deaths and serious forms of disease.

The Preventive Medicine, International Health and Occupational Risk Prevention services at our hospital administer around 60,000 vaccines each year, including vaccines for people with a concomitant illness or immunosuppression, healthcare professionals, and travellers. The Infectious Diseases service is responsible for the clinical management and monitoring of patients with suspected or confirmed infectious diseases, including vaccine-preventable diseases. The Immunology and Microbiology services are very active in detecting and monitoring the humoral and cellular immune response to numerous vaccines, including approximately 3,000 evaluations of cellular response to vaccines and infections, and over 150,000 antibody determinations each year. This activity makes it possible to determine whether a person is immunized (protected) after receiving a vaccine. The Clinical Pharmacology service, along with the hospital’s Pharmacovigilance Programme, has established active and passive vaccine surveillance systems, allowing for an understanding of the mechanisms of toxicity and the generation of adverse effects, and the regulatory notification of adverse reactions to vaccines, in order to improve the safety of vaccination programmes.

The Vaccines and Immune Response to Infections Unit coordinates the healthcare, teaching and scientific efforts related to the field of vaccinology at the Clínic Barcelona in a cross-disciplinary and comprehensive manner. The Unit works on establishing standardized protocols shared with other healthcare services, as well as on disseminating information on aspects related to vaccination, the immune response to them and infections, primarily in immunocompromised populations.