Early in life, vaccination starts protecting kids before they get exposed to disease and ensures protection from illness and complication due to weak immune responses from vaccine-preventable diseases like paralysis of limbs, hearing loss among others. With the basic knowledge that vaccination starts at birth with BCG, Oral Polio vaccine and Hepatitis D being administered. Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus is given in three doses at six, ten and fourteen weeks. Rotavirus is given at six and ten weeks. Measles and yellow fever vaccines are administered at nine months. At the age of one and a half, a measles booster is given. In the U.S these diseases are still brought into the country by international travelers although vaccination has remarkably reduced serious illness cases and children not vaccinated are susceptible to acquiring them (Tate, et al. 2012). Brewer et al. explains risks associated with people’s perspective on vaccination and the effects towards their health. Carman et al. on the other hand tries to give reasons as to why the elderly should receive vaccinations. Tate et al. describe how rotavirus claimed lives of children below five years and the importance of the vaccine after it was universalized. Trunz, Fine, and Dye clarify effects associated with the BCG vaccine. The paper discusses types of vaccinations, risks associated with each vaccination and risks associated with not being vaccinated.
Different vaccinations are offered in a lifetime and are also called vaccines, immunizations, needles or shots. Vaccination familiarizes the child’s immune system and fights specific germs so that an occurrence he or she has a lower risk of becoming ill. Some vaccines for children need a series of doses usually two to four doses to reach their full effectiveness and is termed as primary series. A booster dose is administered after the primary dose, months or years later to refurbish the immune system and sustain protection. Attenuated vaccine contain live virus microorganism that has been cultivated under conditions that disable their virulent properties. They provoke more durable immunological responses. This includes Mycobacterium tuberculosis, oral polio vaccine, measles, rotavirus and yellow fever. There is the inactive vaccine prepared using wild viruses that have been grown in a culture medium and inactivated before being incorporated in a vaccine. Whole cell pertussis, Hepatitis A, Influenza and inactivated poliovirus are placed under this classification. Subunit vaccines are neither attenuated nor can inactivate vaccines that are used to create an immunological response, but a fragment of it creates a response (Carman et al. 2000).
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Each type of vaccination has its own associated risk. Individuals with the compromised immune system may not be able to respond adequately to attenuated antigens. Attenuated pathogens can slip back to a pathogenic form and cause the disease to the vaccines or their contacts. Many of the live attenuated vaccines require attention to the cold chain to be active and may fail if not adhered to (Trunz, Fine and Dye 2006).
There are risks when children are not vaccinated and may lead to death. Delaying and refusing to vaccinate children is a risk to their life and health of other people around them with the weak immune system, those with chronic illnesses, newborns and the elderly with a high risk of complications and may result to elevated levels of infection spreading in the community
(Brewer et al. 2007). Children with vaccine-preventable diseases may often be refused to travel by public transport.
In conclusion, people have different opinions concerning vaccination. My view remains intact concerning vaccination for I believe vaccination is the safest way of prevention hence prevention is better than cure. We have a public health commitment to protect each other and others children by vaccinating our family members. Community-based education to all parents is needed to create awareness on the importance of vaccination, and other means be effected to make sure all children receive all immunizations required in their lifetime. When a child misses one of the vaccinations, a catch-up vaccine should be administered. Parents should be keen on noticing any signs and symptoms not known to them a health care provider should be contacted to prevent complications that may occur in children later in life.
References
Brewer .N. T, Chapman. G.B Gibbons. F. X, Gerrard .M. McCaul., and Weinstein. N. D. (2007). Meta-analysis of the relationship between risk perception and health behavior: the example of vaccination. Health Psychology , 26(2), 136.
Carman, W. F., A.G., Wallace, L.A., McAulay. K., Walker, A., Murray, G. D., and Scott, D. J. (2000). Effects of influenza vaccination of health-care workers on mortality of older adults in the long-term care: a randomized controlled trial. The Lancet , 355(919)
Tate, J. E., Burton, A. H., Boschi-Pinto, C., Steele, A. D., Duque, J., and Parashar, U. D. (2012). 2008 estimate of worldwide rotavirus-associated mortality in children younger than five years before the introduction of universal rotavirus vaccination programmes: a systemic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet infectious diseases , 12(2), 136-141.
Trunz, B.B., Fine, P. E. M., and Dye., C. (2006). Effects of BCG vaccination on childhood tuberculous meningitis and military tuberculous worldwide: a meta-analysis and assessment of cost-effectiveness. The Lancet, 367(9517), 1173-1180. 8), 93-97.
