Like eating healthy foods, exercising and having regular check-ups, vaccines play a vital role in keeping you healthy and protecting the people around you.
This year, African Vaccination Week is celebrated from 24 to 30 April. The aim is to promote one of the world’s most powerful tools for health and to protect people of all ages against diseases.
What is a vaccine?
It is the process whereby your body’s immune system is stimulated to protect you against various infections or diseases.
Are vaccines safe?
Vaccines are widely recognised as one of the most successful and cost-effective health interventions ever introduced. They prevent between 2 and 3 million deaths every year and now protect children not only against diseases for which vaccines have been available for many years, such as diphtheria, tetanus, polio and measles, but also against diseases such as pneumonia and rotavirus diarrhea, two of the biggest killers of children under the age of five.
The SA Department of Health provides free vaccinations to all infants and children up to the age of 12 years at clinics throughout South Africa.
Vaccines are not just for children
Protection from childhood vaccines can wear off over time, and adults may also be at risk for new and different diseases. Diseases like pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus need a booster every 10 years after the initial childhood vaccination. Whooping cough vaccines are recommended for pregnant women between 27 and 36 weeks’ of pregnancy and people who have contact with young babies.
Adolescents and adults can now be protected against life-threatening diseases such as the flu, meningitis (meningococcal vaccine) and hepatitis B, which can cause liver cancer and is transmitted from person to person through contact with blood, semen and vaginal fluid. You can also be vaccinated against hepatitis A, chickenpox (varicella), measles, mumps and rubella.
The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine may protect girls from cervical, vulvar and vaginal cancer and boys from penile cancer. It also provides protection against anal cancer and cancers of the back of the throat (including the base of the tongue and tonsils), and genital warts. Children from 11 years old can get the three dose series of the HPV vaccine. Women can get the HPV vaccine up to age 27, and men can get vaccinated up to the age of 22. The vaccine is also recommended for any man who has sex with men and also for men with compromised immune systems (including HIV) up to the age of 27, if they did not get the HPV vaccine when they were younger.
Ask your health care provider what vaccinations you should have.
Sources
www.adultvaccination.org
www.amayeza-info.co.za
www.cdc.gov/hpv/cancer.html
www.gov.za/globalafrican-vaccination-week-2015
www.worldmag.com