Vaccination of children. The importance of parents need to vaccinate Research Paper

Vaccination of children. The importance of parents need to vaccinate their children - Research Paper Example Vaccination of children. The importance of parents need to vaccinate their children According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), â€Å"Vaccinations not only protect children from developing a potentially serious disease but also protect the community by reducing the spread of infectious disease†. Vaccination can help children for the growth of their immunization system. Children during their developmental stages are vulnerable to many diseases. They may not possess adequate resistive power to counter the attacks of diseases during their infancy or early childhood period. Many children forced to suffer death before the introduction of the practice of vaccination of children. Diseases like diphtheria, small pox, measles, polio etc can cause immense problems to the children during their early developmental stages. After the introduction of vaccination for child diseases like polio, small pox, diphtheria, measles etc started to decrease or disappear from the world. In other words, vaccination of children saved millions of lives since its introduction. Today, in most of the countries vaccination of children against dreadful diseases starts immediately after the birth itself. Periodical vaccination against different diseases may continue till the child reaches his/her 15 or 16 year s of age. In short, vaccination of children can save millions of lives and therefore the parents should give more attention to the periodical vaccination of their children. This paper analyses the importance of child vaccination. Importance of Child Vaccination Up through the early 1920's, diphtheria was one of the most dreaded childhood diseases in the United States, killing over 10,000 people every year. We started vaccinating children against diphtheria in the 1930's and 40's, and today it is rare for a doctor even to see a case of diphtheria. In 1962, the year before measles vaccine was introduced; almost 500,000 cases of measles were reported in the U.S. In 1998 and 1999, only about 100 measles cases were reported each year. Until the middle of the 20th Century, smallpox was one of the most devastating diseases the world has ever known. In 1967, the World Health Organization declared war on smallpox with an intensive, worldwide vaccination campaign. Twelve years later, smallpox was wiped out - gone from the Earth forever. Parents in the 1950's were terrified as polio paralyzed children by the thousands. Now the fight against polio is nearly won, and soon it will join smallpox as nothing but a bad memory (Vaccinations for Children, Why and When, 2011) The above statistics clearly show the importance of vaccination of children. It should be noted that some of the serious diseases which hunted human for a long time, is under control at present, only because of the development of child vaccination system. It is necessary to vaccinate babies using a baby vaccination schedule. This vaccination schedule normally starts immediately after birth itself. Today, medical science has a vaccination schedule for babies and the strict observance of this schedule can help the babies to resist the attack of dreadful diseases. The normal vaccination schedule of a child is given below. AGE VACCINES Birth BCG, OPV, Hepatitis B 6 weeks DTP, OPV+IPV, Hepatitis B, Hib, PCV 10 wee ks DTP, OPV+IPV, Hib, PCV 14 weeks DTP, OPV+IPV, Hepatitis B, Hib, PCV 9 months Measles 1 year Varicella 15 months MMR, PCV Booster 16 months Hib Booster 18 months DTP Booster, OPV+IPV Booster 2 years