How vaccines work and why immunization is important for your child – short explainer

How vaccines work

 

Vaccines use a very small amount of antigen, which helps stimulate our immune system, enabling our body’s fight against various bacteria and viruses. Vaccines not only help protect an individual, but also protect their family and community from contagious diseases.

 

There are various vaccines available which help protect us against diseases like tuberculosis, polio, hepatitis B, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, diarrhea, seasonal flu, measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, hepatitis A, typhoid, yellow fever, cholera, Japanese encephalitis and meningococcal meningitis. 

 

Why immunization is important

 

It has been reported that vaccines save about 5 lives every minute. With the widespread usage of vaccines, we were able to successfully eradicate diseases like smallpox and polio. Despite the many known benefits of a vaccine, low immunization coverage still plagues many parts of our country and around the world, due to reasons ranging from gender disparity to lack of availability of equipment and manpower.

 

Though vaccines are considered safe, like other medicines, they can have side-effects, like fever and pain at the vaccination site, that are generally mild. Most of the immunizations recommended for children are 90-100% effective.

 

“A stitch in time saves nine” goes the saying, therefore timely administration of vaccines helps protect children from serious and potentially threatening diseases. So, parents are requested to contact their healthcare providers and discuss the various childhood vaccines available and get their children immunized.

 

Rainbow Children's Hospital, Guindy, Chennai, offers immunization services to all the children aged 0-18 years. We follow the Indian Academy of Pediatrics’ guidelines and immunization schedule for all our children. In addition, we participate in pulse polio immunization programs and COVID vaccination programs. We also provide adolescent immunization counseling at every opportunity.

 

This article was published in partnership with Rainbow Children’s Hospital.