How many vaccines can be given during an office visit?

With rare exceptions*, all vaccines can be administered at the same visit. There is no upper limit for the number of vaccines that can be administered during one visit. ACIP and AAP consistently recommend that all needed vaccines be administered during an office visit. Vaccination should not be deferred because multiple vaccines are needed. All live vaccines (MMR, varicella, live attenuated influenza, yellow fever, and oral typhoid) can be given at the same visit if indicated. If live vaccines are not administered during the same visit, they should be separated by 4 weeks or more.

When giving several injections at a single visit, separate IM vaccines by at least 1 inch in the body of the muscle if possible to reduce the likelihood of local reactions overlapping. Here are some helpful site maps for different ages so you can record where shots were given:

For infants and toddlers: www.eziz.org/PDF/IMM-718.pdf

For older children: www.aimtoolkit.org/docs/Giving_all_the_doses_12mths.pdf

For adults: eziz.org/assets/docs/ADA/IMM-718A.pdf

For details see ACIP’s “General Best Practices Guidelines for Immunization”, available at www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/acip-recs/general-recs/administration.html.

*There are 3 exceptions to this general rule: 1) if both pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13, Prevnar 13, Pfizer) and pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23, Pneumovax 23, Merck) are indicated for a high-risk patient, these vaccines should not be given at the same visit. The PCV13 should be given first followed by PPSV23 at least 8 weeks later. If PPSV23 has already been given, wait 8 weeks (for a child) or 1 year (for an adult age 19 years or older) before giving PCV13 to avoid interference between the two vaccines. 2) A person with anatomic or functional asplenia or HIV should receive both PCV13 and meningococcal ACWY (MenACWY) vaccines. If Menactra brand (Sanofi) MenACWY is used, the person should first receive all recommended doses of PCV13 followed by Menactra at least 4 weeks later. Menveo (GSK) or MenQuadfi (Sanofi) MenACWY brands can be given at the same time or at any time before or after PCV13. 3) Cholera vaccine should be administered before TY21a vaccine, and 8 hours should separate cholera vaccine and the first dose of TY21a.