(Delhi)
World Immunization Week is celebrated every year during the last week of April. This year’s theme, “For every generation, vaccines work,” is aimed at educating people on how vaccines have protected our families and communities for generations.
Vaccines have been one of the most powerful tools in public health. According to the World Health Organization, vaccines have saved over 150 million lives over the past five decades. This has not been by accident, but because ordinary people made the conscious decision to protect themselves, their children, and one another.
There are many more lives to be saved by building on these achievements. The future of immunization means not only reaching millions of children who have never received a single shot, but also protecting grandparents from influenza, babies from malaria and RSV, pregnant mothers from tetanus, and young girls from HPV.
We are at a watershed moment in history. Hard-won gains in stamping out preventable diseases through vaccination are in jeopardy. Let’s dispel some common myths and misconceptions about vaccines together!
(1) MYTH – Vaccines cause the disease they are meant to protect
FACT – Most vaccines contain killed, weakened, or fragmented germs that teach the immune system to fight infection without causing the illness itself. Mild side effects like fever or soreness can occur, but these are signs of the immune system responding, not of the disease itself.
Certain vaccines (e.g., MMR, Rotavirus) use weakened live viruses. While they cannot cause full-blown illness in healthy people, in rare cases they can cause symptoms in immunodeficient individuals.
(2) MYTH – Vaccines cause autism
FACT – A 2009 NIH study by Gerber & Offit drew conclusions from over 20 epidemiologic studies showing that neither thimerosal nor the MMR vaccine causes autism. Time and again, studies have shown that autism rates are the same in vaccinated and unvaccinated children.
(3) MYTH – I don’t need to vaccinate my child because other children around them are already immune
FACT – Herd immunity occurs when a large portion of a community, usually greater than 85%, is immunized against a contagious disease. Immunocompromised individuals who cannot receive vaccines depend on this type of protection. However, if everyone starts to rely on this method of prevention, herd immunity will soon disappear.
The choice to vaccinate has protected tens of millions of children. More children now live to see their first birthday—and grow up, fall in love, have families, and grow old—than at any other point in human history.
