Antibiotics allergy
Vaccines, especially with live attenuated virus, may contain traces of
antibiotics such as neomycin, gentamicin, streptomycin and polimixin B
with the aim to avoid contamination among the manufacturing process. In
case of allergy to such antibiotics, the most common clinical history
regards local reactions as contact dermatitis, which require amounts of
neomycin far higher than those normally found in vaccines to produce
clinical manifestations, and which do not pose any contraindication to
vaccinations17. In case of suspected allergy, patch
tests are available and can be performed to confirm sensitization and
choose alternative vaccines although re-vaccination is not
contraindicated even in case of positive patch test results except for
the very rare cases of anaphilaxys1,24. Commercially
available haptens are kanamycin sulphate, polymyxin B, gentamycin and
neomycin.