Immunization: why, what is it, and when should it be carried out?
The next in our list "Do not be ill" is one of the most important benefits of the public health system - immunization, or vaccinations. First of all, I would like to dispel the doubts that the media have sown in the hearts of such vulnerable parents who want to do their best for their child and at the same time receive conflicting information about immunization. Parents faced a dilemma: they want to vaccinate their children, because they are afraid that otherwise the child will fall ill, but are afraid that the child will have a severe reaction to the vaccination. Here is a balanced approach that will help intimidated parents make the right choice.
It's easy to forget about the illness when we have not seen it in our eyes for a long time. But grandmothers and grandfathers who grew up before the invention of vaccines remember how practically every neighbor's house had a child suffering from polio in the respiratory apparatus. As a student, I often came across sounds resembling the roar of fur seals, and barking coughs, published by children in a serious condition in the ward, where patients with pertussis lay. The children with brain injuries caused by encephalitis, which arose as a complication in measles, when there was not a measles vaccine, still live in my memory, and let's not forget about the children with congenital malformations that were born to mothers who had rubella during pregnancy. Many of these disasters are no longer with us, thanks to vaccines.
How does the vaccine work? The vaccine is made from parts of the causative agent of the disease or from an altered pathogen( weakened);it stimulates the body's production of antibodies to this pathogen without causing a disease. If the present microbe penetrates the body, the child already has antibodies against this microbe, and the child does not get sick, or it can have only an mild form of the disease. The effect of some vaccines is weakening over time, and a second vaccination is required to re-stimulate the body to produce antibodies.
Weigh the risk and benefits of
Every vaccine - like any foreign substance in general( even new food) that enters the body - brings both risk and benefit. When evaluating each medicine or vaccine, we weigh the benefits and risks it brings. It is here that the fact that not all vaccines are the same is shown.
Almost all vaccines have the following ratio: low risk / great benefit, i.e., the risk is small compared to the huge benefits. An example of a vaccine with a high risk ratio compared to benefit is smallpox vaccine. To date, the possibility of catching smallpox is practically reduced to zero, whereas the disease that may occur after vaccination is quite severe;so this vaccine is no longer used. This is also an example of how the world's mandatory immunization program has succeeded in eradicating a terrible disease.