As the esteemed Benjamin Franklin once said, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. This iconic quote from one of the Founding Fathers can easily be applied to the concept of childhood vaccination. Vaccination is an important step towards preventing your child from contracting dangerous diseases.
Vaccines also help prevent the spread of diseases in a community. After all, if a virus has no one to infect, then it cannot spread. With that in mind, here are two vital childhood vaccines a Lone Tree pediatrician should administer to your child:
MMR Vaccine
The MMR vaccine protects children from three different diseases: measles, mumps, and rubella. All three diseases are highly dangerous and highly infectious, but can easily be prevented by getting vaccinated. However, an article from Wired reports that the United States has recently seen a sharp rise in the number of measles cases because many people are refusing to get vaccinated:
In a press briefing, the CDC’s director Dr. Thomas Frieden said that from January to November, there were 175 known cases of measles in the US, with 20 of those people having to be hospitalized. The US cases came from 52 separate travelers. Most of the time, each imported case infected only a few people—but nine times, the imports caused large outbreaks, usually in unvaccinated people.
“It is not a failure of the vaccine,” Frieden said. “It’s a failure to vaccinate. Around 90 percent of the people who have had measles in this country were not vaccinated either because they refused, or were not vaccinated on time.”
Varicella Vaccine
The varicella vaccine prevents children from contracting the varicella-zoster virus, the virus responsible for chickenpox and shingles. It is advised that children be vaccinated for chickenpox early in childhood (ideally at 12-15 months and again at age 4-6 years old). Colorado schools require parents to show proof that their children have been vaccinated for chickenpox before admitting them.
These two vaccines, along with other important childhood vaccines, are available in most Lone Tree pediatric offices, such as Lone Tree Pediatrics. If your child has yet to be vaccinated, be sure to contact a reputable pediatrician in Lone Tree to request the necessary vaccines for your child.
(Article Excerpt and Image from Measles Cases Triple in U.S., Vaccine Refusal Here and Elsewhere to Blame; Wired; December 6, 2013)
About Debra Berry
