Vaccines

Vaccine codes represent the vaccination trails at their best precision level:

• A fully qualified product (BOOSTRIXTETRA)
• A combination of valences (Tdap)
• A target disease (vaccine against rabies)

Three types of vaccine codes are identified:

• Abstract vaccines codes correspond to classes of vaccines with a same set of valences. They are characterized by their valences.
• Real vaccines codes correspond to identified products. They are characterized by the abstract vaccine class to which they belong.
• Deprecated vaccine codes correspond to concepts that are no longer in use. They could have been originally abstract or real vaccines, but if they are encountered into a record they should be interpreted, and if possible replaced, by the abstract vaccine class to which they belong.

When a same product is commercialised in different territories under different brand names (such as BOOSTRIXTETRA, POLIO BOOSTRIX and BOOSTRIX-POLIO), since the production conditions may differ, one vaccine code is attributed for each brand name.

For a fully qualified product, the label is unique, not associated with a specific language, and matches the vaccine brand name.

For a combination of valences or a target disease, there is a label for each language.

Concept codes for vaccines are formed as VACxxxx, where xxxx is a 4 digits number.