Dra. Dolly, a retired physician with more than 40 years of professional practice in Children’s Health Care, would like parents to be more open to vaccination when it comes to their children’s medical wellness.
From a retired pediatrician’s point of view, here are a few guidelines and a quick but detailed discussion on whether, as a concerned parent, you should have the children vaccinated or not.
First of all, Dra. Dolly wants to emphasize the primary reason for vaccination. It is to prevent infection from various diseases. The key word is “prevention.” There are a variety of different kinds of vaccines available. The immediate needs of children from birth onwards would include the following vaccines:
BCG stands for Bacil Calmette-Guerin, a tuberculosis disease (TB) vaccine given at birth at the nursery department of the hospital.
DPT Polio, a 3-in-1 vaccine that fights diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), and tetanus (lockjaw). This class of combination vaccine was formulated because of the outbreak of Polio in the 1940s and early 1950s.
MMR, a vaccine that protects kids against measles, mumps, and rubella with a follow-up booster when they are between four and six years old.
Hepatitis A, B, and C are different kinds of viral hepatitis. Hepatitis A is an acute infection, and people generally get well even without heavy treatment. At the same time, Hepatitis B and C are probable causes of chronic liver disease if left untreated because of chronic, persistent infection.
HESITANCE OF PARENTS
These vaccines are injected to fight the onset of infection from the various infectious diseases mentioned. Some parents are still hesitant about having their kids vaccinated. From Dra. Dolly’s medical practice, parents are normally worried about the side effects of the vaccines like fever. So to avoid their apprehension, the doctor will give an antipyretic for anti-fever like paracetamol and tempra. As a medical professional, it is their stand to have children vaccinated.
I asked Dra. Dolly if there had been any untoward incident regarding vaccinations with one of her patients. She said that BCG leaves a mark on the arm. During the first week of vaccination, there is mild swelling. The treatment was thoroughly cleansing the vaccination site with hydrogen peroxide so it would not get bigger. Other vaccines have no reaction, unlike with BCG.
Even the vaccines against Hepatitis can still be given to adults. It is also advised that adults have anti-pneumonia, pneumococcal vaccination, and anti-cervical cancer vaccines for women, generally known as HPV.
According to News Medical Life Sciences, “Among females routinely offered vaccines at 12 to 13 years of age, the adjusted age-standardized incidence rates for cervical cancers and CIN3 were 84% and 94% lower over an additional follow-up year (July 1, 2019, to June 30, 2020) compared to the reference group of females not offered HPV vaccines. By the middle of 2020, HPV vaccines would have saved predicted 687 cervical malignancies and 23,192 CIN3s.”
Local Government Units (LGUs) in the Philippines offer free vaccines for children of the underprivileged social class at barangay health centers. This has been an ongoing program for quite a long time already. Known as the Expanded Program on Immunization, it was signed into law in 1976 by then-President Ferdinand Marcos. If the child has no previous vaccine, they can still have their dose at any age.
PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE
PPS, the Philippine Pediatric Society Inc. speaks of the importance of vaccines. “Vaccines are important because they prevent certain childhood diseases, which are highly communicable and may lead to serious consequences in children and adults. Vaccines also play a role in reducing the risk of infections that are not common but are associated with severe life-threatening conditions and/or disabilities.”
As per the brief history discussion of vaccination by the World Health Organization, in the 15th century, there were no vaccines yet, but attempts were made to prevent illnesses. Only in May 1796 was there a scientific breakthrough by Dr. Edward Jenner, and vaccines became available. He created the world’s first successful vaccine. There was a high morbidity and mortality rate amongst children from a wide-ranging number of diseases, especially from 1918 to 1919 during the Spanish Flu pandemic. From 1937 onwards, vaccines were made available like we have now, such as the vaccine against yellow fever.
CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) stated: “The disease-prevention benefits of getting vaccines are much greater than the possible side effects for almost all children.” There is a principle among medical practitioners: “An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.”
