Are you up to date with your children’s vaccinations? Here’s why this is the perfect time of year for a review. | Courtesy VDH
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For more information visit: www.vdh.virginia.gov/backtoschool
By Dra. Rebecca Vargas-Jackson, M.D. George Mason University, Center for Health and Risk Communication, Physician Manager Support of the COVID-19 Health Equity Group, VDEM.
• Are you up to date with your children’s vaccinations? Here’s why this is the perfect time of year for a review.
Summer is over and the family will return to their daily routines very soon. And this is the ideal time for every parent or guardian of a child or adolescent to ask an important question: “Do my children have all their vaccines?”
This questioning is crucial, especially now, because according to official figures, 4 out of 10 children in the United States have not been vaccinated in recent months because their parents stopped taking them to their respective pediatric consultations for fear of catching COVID-19.
We need to prevent our children from catching preventable diseases that can be deadly! The importance of vaccines cannot be stressed enough. This is because the body needs to protect itself against various viruses and bacteria that are everywhere in our environment. If children are not vaccinated correctly at an early age they will have no protection against diseases that could affect their development or even cause premature death.
As an example, in the last three or four generations, the number of children with polio has drastically decreased.
We are very grateful for the polio vaccine because it prevents new cases of polio from occurring. The same occurs with other diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella (also known as German measles), whooping cough (or pertussis), diphtheria and chickenpox, among others; But if your child is not vaccinated, these vaccines will not protect him from contracting diseases that can cause permanent disabilities or death! That is why you have to take them to the pediatrician, to the free clinic or to the offices of the Health Department in each city, where doctors or nurses can check their immunization records and see which vaccines they need and update them.
In Virginia, there are two immunization schedules available.
The first, known as the Child Immunization Schedule, begins at birth and ends when children turn six years old. There is also a second calendar for children who turned six through 18, called the School Immunization Requirement, required by the Code of Virginia before entering kindergarten or both public and private schools.
As already mentioned, each age requires different vaccinations. When we receive vaccines, the body is prepared to defend itself against certain viruses and bacteria to which they may never have been exposed before. So when kids reach their teens and are about to enter seventh grade, they need to have TDAP, HPV, and meningitis before being admitted to classrooms.
The first of these immunizations, known as TDAP, is the vaccine that protects against tetanus, diphtheria and what we know as whooping cough or whooping cough – which is not a simple cough, it will be passed with a cough syrup that you buy at the pharmacy, or with honey or other home remedies. It’s pretty serious. Tetanus is also very serious, children can be infected very easily by playing sports or simply playing in the park.
Then we have the vaccine that protects against the human papillomavirus (HPV). This type of vaccine is very important in adolescents, especially when they are beginning their intimate life, as it helps them prevent infection with this virus and its possible consequences, which would include cancer in the genitals, anus or throat, for both sexes.
The third vaccine needed to return to school, especially when the boys are entering the seventh grade, is the one that protects against meningitis, a disease that causes inflammation of the membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord and can cause deafness, paralysis , or affect cognitive development, therefore, school performance. In very severe cases, meningitis can be fatal.
Undoubtedly, the immune system of your children must learn to defend itself and the best way to “train” it is by giving it the necessary vaccines, at the right time, without forgetting that access to vaccines is free. children due to their immigration status and it becomes a privilege that many times we do not have in our countries of origin, especially when we come from Latin America. So, it must be taken as a privilege that you and your children have, a right to grow up healthier and more protected.
To conclude, do not forget that if your child is 12 years old or older they should receive the COVID-19 vaccine as the Delta variant is causing a very severe illness in children and adolescents.
Find more information about current Virginia vaccination schedules or required back-to-school vaccinations by visiting: https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/backtoschool or, following @vaccinatevirginia on Facebook and Instagram, where you will find information about the places where you can access these and other vaccines.
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