Ever heard of the saying- "Prevention is better than cure."?
In a study by Coombes R, written in 2017 as a response to the measles outbreak in Europe, it is stated that 87% of the measles cases occurred in unvaccinated people. BMJ. 2017 Oct 16; 359():j4803.
Vaccines are the answer for people who would like to gain immunity without the pain of getting sick. Vaccines work by utilizing either dead or weakened germs/ part of germs . When you get vaccinated, your immune system recognizes that the germ in the vaccine is foreign.
It responds by making antibodies, just like how it would respond to a real germ. Your immune system will then remember the germ and how to destroy it so your immune system will have a chance to quickly destroy the germ that's causing the disease before it makes you ill. It is certainly much safer to get the vaccine than the disease it prevents.
The impacts of vaccines are overwhelmingly positive. For instance, the impact of vaccination led to the 1979 eradication of polio in the USA, as well as the 1980 eradication of smallpox worldwide. Both of these diseases involved an increased risk of death as well as disabilities, and was very contagious.
Polio had the ability to spread via person to person contact whilst Smallpox spread through prolonged face-face contact with an infected person and through direct contact with infected fluids or contaminated objects. This would mean that the diseases would be able to spread very fast despite the maintenance of good hygiene standards.
The Slovak Republic made vaccination compulsory in the 1950s. When vaccines were uncommon, the country faced high mortality rates. In addition, the cost of treatments for people with the disease was much more expensive than undergoing vaccination. As of now, in The Slovak Republic, there are no children with diphtheria, poliomyelitis, or measles.
Vaccination has also played a key role in increasing the life expectancy of people. In the 1900s, the life expectancy in the USA was 47.3 years as communicable diseases such as pneumonia, influenza, tuberculosis, diphtheria, smallpox, pertussis, measles as well as typhoid fever were rampant.
Link to view the information on policies of mandatory or recommended vaccinations in European Countries:
Over the last 117 years, the life expectancy in the USA has nearly doubled to 78.54 years(2017).Vaccination is not the sole cause in the huge increment in life expectancy. Increased hygiene as well as antibiotics have played a major role as well . However, vaccines were very much needed as human to human contact is mostly inevitable and is something we are currently struggling with at the time this speech was written.
Some other cases that demonstrate the power of vaccines are as follows: In 2013- 2014, 36 children in Syria and 2 in Iraq became paralyzed as a result of a polio outbreak (the first in 14 years). After a UN campaign that reached nearly 25 million
people in 7 countries, no new cases of wild New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared polio virus have been reported since.
a public emergency after a spike in measles
infection on April 18 2020.Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
One of the frequently stated mindset of anti-vaxxers is: Why bother vaccinating when disease rates are so low? What they forget is that in today’s world, people are frequently travelling between different places and the chances of transmission of highly contagious diseases remains an issue.
This is why, even if a country has eradicated a certain disease, it still will remain a priority for vaccines to be constantly issued because there is still a chance that an outbreak can occur if the disease arrives from elsewhere. Of course, an exception would be smallpox (last case found in 1977, Somalia). If a disease has been eradicated, there won’t be a need for the vaccine.
Anti-vaxxers seem to also believe that vaccines can be harmful to a child’s immune system. However, that is far from the truth. As vaccines introduce a weakened or a deactivated version of the virus into a body, it prompts the body to fight off the infection, leading to the immune system’s knowledge on how to fight off the diseases.
Anti-vaccine demonstrators outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta in June. Credit...Audra Melton for The New York Times
An example would be if a child has had chickenpox before, they will be immune to further chicken pox injections because their body has produced the right antibodies to fight them off. Vaccines work in the same way but do not make children sick.
Another notion that is incredibly harmful is that vaccination can lead to autism. This myth rose from a study in the 1990s. The study was retracted but a certain population have continued believing this notion. The authors of this study claimed that receiving the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) Vaccine increases a child’s chance of developing autism. The study only included 12 children. According to a research review by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there is no valid scientific evidence linking the MMR vaccine with autism.
Dr Andrew Wakefield, publisher of the paper that caused the MMR Vaccine controversy struck off medical register by General Medical Council for serious professional misconduct.
Others believe natural immunity is better than vaccination. Natural immunity occurs when a child becomes unwell and has to fight off the infection. If they survive the infection, they will become immune to the virus that caused it in the first place, such as the case with chickenpox.
While it is true that natural immunity may sometimes be stronger than vaccine acquired immunity, the risks in getting the actual disease will far outweigh the benefits. A rise in unfavourable and severely uncomfortable symptoms can occur during the infection.Vaccines have proved to reduce measles-related deaths by 80% in the 2000-2017 time frame.It is extremely rare for someone to react to a vaccine.It is undoubtedly safer for a child to undergo vaccination as it involves a lower risk of harm.
Additionally, many anti- vaxxers claim that vaccines contain harmful and toxic substances.
Mercury, formaldehyde, and aluminium are present in some vaccines but they are only toxic in high amounts. Plus, our bodies get exposure towards these substances almost on a daily basis.
Formaldehyde is consumed while eating fruits, meat, poultry and vegetables. Aluminium is present in the water we drink. Mercury can be found at even high levels in fish. Yet, anti-vaxxers choose not to stay away from these.Vaccines usually contain a tiny amount of these substances, the levels are so low that they simply can’t cause harm to our body.
Some people are unable to vaccinate for some legitimate reasons such as age and immune system weaknesses. It would never be fair for a person who cannot get vaccinated to get infected with the disease as they rely on public trust. As they are an extremely small minority, they trust that all people who are able to get vaccinated to do so. Their safety can only be achieved if everyone does their part. This is called ‘herd immunity’ where a high majority of the population is vaccinated..
Remember, the safety of the world relies on each and every one of us who have the ability to vaccinate so we can protect our world from the dangers of a highly contagious and lethal disease. With the current pandemic going on, people should realize that a vaccine is certainly more beneficial than harmful.
Save the world. Vaccinate.
A particularly pertinent article at the moment. Thank you for an informative and interesting read.
WOW! AMAZING
Beautifully written.Good job!
Excellent! Very informative .
Nice work! You must've done a lot of research for this.