“ A vaccine is a suspension of weakened, killed, or fragmented microorganisms or toxins or of antibodies or lymphocytes that is administered primarily to prevent disease.“
Sounds too technical? Let us explain. The human body is a wondrous machine and one of the most intriguing parts of this elaborate machine is how our immune system works. Our immune system has the capability of producing and storing antibodies of various dangerous diseases in our bloodstream for whenever they might be of use to us. And thanks to vaccines we can trick our immune system into producing these antibodies which are now forever in our bloodstreams to protect us from future infection. Like adding another log onto a ledger, we can build our immune system to be resistant to several diseases. In short, a vaccine is like a training course for the immune system to prepare for the possibility of a case of having to go to war.
Yes, most of the working class today has been through the system of government-mandated vaccination as children so why are we talking about this again you ask? The scientific community has improved by leaps and bounds since a majority of the present population has last got its shots. We’ll give a few examples as well. The most notable one would be the discovery of the vaccine for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) - cause of the deadly cervical cancer, affecting almost a lakh women in the country every year, resulting in 60K+ deaths.
Another example would be the introduction of the Hepatitis B vaccine in India in the year 2008 which is a deadly disease but is easily preventable by a simple vaccine. Studies show that we live in a country with almost 37 million carriers of Hepatitis B while the Hepatitis B vaccination coverage is very low. Many of the diseases we fear like typhoid, chickenpox, shingles, etc. have a vaccine developed but the lack of awareness and easy accessibility put a huge percentage of our population at risk.
There are a lot of responsibilities to being an adult and they put you in a lot of situations which demand you to be responsible and aware of your health condition. Even though you believe you’ve gotten all your vaccinations you might be missing a key piece of information that some vaccinations wear off over time for example the Tetanus/Diphtheria vaccine or that some vaccines are only available for adults such as the shingles vaccine whose risk increases as we grow older.
Your job may require you to travel around the world, that’s amazing but being prepared against the hidden infections that country might welcome you with is just as important. When we disregard our healthcare precautions we put the people we love who we come in contact with at risk. Our work and lifestyle choice also bring us in contact with a lot of possible infections that we could be immune to with just a vaccine, for example being infected with Hepatitis B through a partner or working in the healthcare profession which increases the risk of exposure manifold.
There are three things a man cannot escape - taxes, death, and a flu pandemic. This has been proven true multiple times in our history, with the swine flu, Spanish flu, Asian flu, and more. Thankfully, we have advanced enough to develop vaccines for the flu and this is administered through a single flu shot which gives us protection against a set of the virus strains but the catch is that these need to be retaken every year.
India does have a few corporations and institutions which have mandatory vaccination checks on admission but the effectiveness and the scale is quite small. The present scenario has taught us that it’s high time that we take our health seriously and take efforts to make ourselves more aware of the possible measures to make us and our family more protected. After the turmoil caused by the novel coronavirus all over the world, it would be foolish to not reassess our situation and the numerous diseases we can avoid just by taking one additional precaution.
NeoDocs strives to fill the gap between people and this necessary precaution. Check out our vaccination assessment questionnaire where you will be presented with a comprehensive list of vaccines recommended for you.
