Vaccines are a vital part of the health care strategy of every nation. The first year of a child's life is typically the most intensive in terms of vaccinations. Their use is vital during such a time because they protect the child from fatal illnesses that are often difficult to treat. They include small pox, yellow fever, measles and polio. The vaccines also prevent the spread of diseases to those in close contact with a person who may be infected (Whitney et al., 2014).
This prevents an outbreak of a disease which may affect a large portion of the population. This protection is vital for the more vulnerable members of the society such as other infants, the elderly and any other person with a compromised immunity. This service of people have lowered immunity due to age factors and illnesses. An infant's immunity is also strengthened by the introduction of a vaccine (Campbell et al., 2017). Despite this benefits, vaccines should not be administered to infants.
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All vaccines that are administered to infants have side effects. Some only cause mild symptoms such as fever, headache , vomiting, shivering ,allergies or muscle pain. This often happens if the vaccine that was administered was not well matched to the body. A greater dose of the vaccine may also infected the infant with the disease that they were trying to prevent. This would require a series of treatments to reverse it (Stassijns et al., 2016).
The side effects mentioned above may be detrimental to a child if they occur after more than one vaccine. A child may get more than 15 vaccines during their first year. This can disrupt their immune system and present itself as a illness. Other concerns about vaccines include their ability to cause chronic diseases (Nyhan et al., 2014). They include epilepsy, autism, Tourette's syndrome, as well as a range of learning and communication difficulties. These are chronic conditions that reduce the quality of life that a child may have enjoyed. Given this risks, it is better to avoid vaccines unless they are proven to be safe for the infant .
References
Campbell, H., Edwards, A., Letley, L., Bedford, H., Ramsay, M., &Yarwood, J. (2017). Changing attitudes to childhood immunisation in English parents. Vaccine , 35 (22), 2979-2985.
Nyhan, B., Reifler, J., Richey, S., & Freed, G. L. (2014). Effective messages in vaccine promotion: a randomized trial. Pediatrics , peds-2013.
Stassijns, J., Bollaerts, K., Baay, M., & Verstraeten, T. (2016). A systematic review and meta-analysis on the safety of newly adjuvanted vaccines among children. Vaccine , 34 (6), 714-722.
Whitney, C. G., Zhou, F., Singleton, J., & Schuchat, A. (2014). Benefits from immunization during the vaccines for children program era-United States, 1994-2013. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report , 63 (16), 352-355.
