July 10, 2009
The importance of childhood immunizations
Editor’s note: The following article was provided by Trista Neisen in the Marketing and Public Relations Department of St. Mary’s Medical Center, Evansville.
It is always better to prevent a disease than to treat it. Vaccines prevent disease in the people who receive them and protect those who come into contact with unvaccinated individuals. They help prevent infectious diseases and save lives. (Related story: School physicals and immunizations)
Vaccines are responsible for the control of many infectious diseases that were once common in this country, including:
- Polio
- Measles
- Diphtheria
- Pertussis (whooping cough)
- Rubella (German measles)
- Mumps
- Tetanus
- Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib).
Vaccines work to protect infants, children and adults from illnesses and death caused by infectious diseases. While the U.S. currently has record, or near record, low cases of vaccine-preventable diseases, the viruses and bacteria that cause them still exist.
Even diseases that have been eliminated in this country, such as polio, are only a plane ride away. Polio and other infectious diseases can be passed on to people who are not protected by vaccines.
Vaccine-preventable diseases have a costly impact, resulting in doctor’s visits, hospitalizations and premature deaths. Sick children can also cause parents to lose time from work.
It’s true that newborn babies are immune to many diseases because they have antibodies they got from their mothers. However, the duration of this immunity may last only a month to about a year. Further, young children do not have maternal immunity against some vaccine-preventable diseases, such as whooping cough.
If a child is not vaccinated and is exposed to a disease germ, the child’s body may not be strong enough to fight the disease. Before vaccines, many children died from diseases that vaccines now prevent, such as whooping cough, measles and polio. Those same germs exist today, but babies are now protected by vaccines, so we do not see these diseases as often.
Source: Centers for Disease Control