For over 50 years, vaccination has saved more than a billion lives and prevented countless illnesses and disabilities. In the modern times, the first vaccine-preventable disease targeted for eradication was smallpox with the World Health Organization (WHO) coordinating the global eradication effort. The effort was a success and the last naturally occurring case of smallpox occurred in Somalia way back in 1977.
However, vaccine-preventable diseases haven’t gone away and the viruses and bacteria that cause illness and death still exist and can be passed on to those who are not protected by vaccines.
Here are 5 reasons why you should get yourself vaccinated:
Vaccines will help keep you healthy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends vaccinations throughout your life to protect against many infections not just during your childhood years. When you skip vaccine, you leave yourself vulnerable to illnesses such as shingles, pneumococcal disease, influenza, and HPV and hepatitis B, both leading causes of cancer.
Contrary to myths, vaccines won’t give you the disease they are designed to prevent. You cannot “catch” the disease from the vaccine. Some vaccines contain “killed” virus, and it is impossible to get the disease from them. Others have live, but weakened, viruses designed to ensure that you cannot catch the disease.
Even young and healthy people can get very sick, too. While infants and the elderly are at a greater risk for serious infections and complications in many cases, vaccine-preventable diseases can strike anyone.
Getting vaccinated is a lot cheaper than treatment. Vaccines may be expensive, but it is less costly than getting treatment for a disease. An average influenza illness can last up to 15 days, typically with five or six missed workdays. Adults who get hepatitis A meanwhile can lose an average of one month of work. Dengue treatment also could take weeks or even months before full recovery.
Vaccination can save your life. Vaccine-preventable infections are dangerous. Every year, approximately 50,000 US adults die from vaccine-preventable diseases in the US.
In addition, vaccines are as important to your overall health as diet and exercise. Just like eating healthy food, exercising, and getting regular check-ups, vaccines play a vital role in keeping you healthy. Vaccines are also one of the most convenient and safest preventive care measures available. Data from many different medical investigators also state that vaccines are among the safest products in all of medicine.
Getting yourself vaccinated is now even more convenient and you don’t have to go to the hospital and endure the long waiting times.
Watsons for example, now offers several kinds of vaccinations for flu, pneumonia and cervical cancer. Recently, the retail chain also announced the availability of the new dengue vaccine in its select stores all over the country. To ensure safety, physicians will administer all vaccinations.
“As part of our commitment to improve the lives and health of Filipinos by making health care more accessible to them, we decided to offer dengue vaccination in our select stores nationwide. Dengue is a recurring epidemic in the country, that’s why we recognize the importance of protecting Filipinos against this deadly disease through the vaccination,” says Watsons Trading Health Director Danilo Chiong.
The dengue vaccination was launched in the country by the Department of Health (DOH) together with the Department of Education (DepEd), and later on was made available in medical clinics last year.
Now, Watsons is the first retailer to offer it in the Philippine market.
Leading multinational pharmaceutical company and an expert in the development of vaccinations, Sanofi Pasteur created the first vaccine against dengue, Dengvaxia. The vaccine took more than 20 years to develop and has been thoroughly tested, based on WHO’s guidelines. Studies of the vaccine included more than 41,000 people and were carried out in 15 countries including the Philippines. A committee of independent experts, also recommended by WHO, reviewed the results.
In the Philippines, the DOH together with DepEd launched the much awaited administration of the dengue vaccine through school-based immunization approach with the aim to administer vaccination to about one million Grade 4 pupils enrolled in public schools in several regions of the country aged 9 years old and above.
As of February 2017, the vaccine has been approved in 14 countries where dengue is endemic including Singapore, Mexico, Brazil and the Philippines.
The dengue vaccine has also gotten the endorsement of the Philippine Society for Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and Philippine College of Physicians.
Besides the health risks, dengue also has an impact on public health costing billions of pesos of tax payers money with treatment costing tens of thousands in pesos per patient.
The dengue vaccination, to be taken in three doses at 0 – 6 – 12 months interval, can protect the individual from all four strains of the dengue virus. This can be administered to people aged 9 to 45 years old.
The dengue vaccination is the latest addition to the vaccines offered by Watsons. It will cost P4000 per dose or P12000 for all three doses, which is a reasonable price given the high incidence of dengue and high cost of treatment in the Philippines.
The scheduled dengue vaccination is on Oct 29, 2017 (second dose) and April 29, 2018 (third dose), also on Nov. 12 (second dose), May 13, 2018 (third dose).
This will be available in more than 100 stores nationwide.