When you think about being vaccinated, the first thing that comes to mind is often the needle used to inject the vaccine into your body. Sometimes, you may also worry about the aftereffects of the vaccine.
The fear of a needle nor a vaccine’s side effects, if any, shouldn’t be a deterrent to getting vaccinated. Vaccinations are of key importance as they prevent the spread of contagious and deadly diseases, like chickenpox, measles, mumps and more.
A vaccine works by triggering your body’s natural immunity to a disease before you actually get sick. Most vaccines involve injecting a weakened form of the disease germ into your system.
After your body detects the germs, it produces antibodies as an immunity response to fight them. These antibodies remain in your body for a long time, and in many cases, for the rest of your life, preventing future infection.
Here are some reasons to be brave and schedule your next vaccination with your house call doctor:
- Expels Life-Threatening Diseases
From birth, we are exposed to numerous disease-causing bacteria lurking all around us.
Vaccines can help to eliminate most occurrences of a disease, like polio. Without it, diseases like smallpox would have continued unleashing their deadly wrath upon the world.
Should vaccines be stopped, diseases would gradually return. Many diseases are still prevalent and active in other parts of the world, especially in less-developed countries. Epidemics would occur.
- Safer Than Catching A Disease
Prevention is always better than cure.
Vaccines educate your body to create antibodies that protect you from diseases without making you sick. They are a much safer and less painful option than actually catching a disease and treating them.
Many diseases can cause serious complications that sometimes result in death. Instead of risking the effects of a dangerous disease, vaccines are a simple and yet highly effective way to safeguard yourself.
- Achieves Herd Immunity
Like what governments around the world are hoping to achieve with the COVID-19 vaccines, our local government wants us to be vaccinated to attain herd immunity.
This happens when a bulk of the population has been vaccinated against a disease, and only a handful of people are left for it to spread to.
It protects the few that have not been vaccinated. This happened for smallpox, which has been completely eradicated, with no cases having happened since 1980.
- Safe Especially for Children
Some naysayers may not believe in the safety of vaccines – perhaps because of the fear of being injected with a virus. However, apart from some occasional side effects that last for a short while, vaccines are completely safe.
They do not overwork the immune system, especially in infants and young children. A lot of time is spent assessing a vaccine before determining that it is safe for public use.
- Protects People You Care About
Unfortunately, not everyone is suitable to get vaccinated for certain diseases. This may be due to serious allergies, weakened immune systems, age and more. When you and other family members eligible to get vaccinated do so, you are indirectly protecting those who cannot.
Doing this minimises the spread to the people you love, who could be severely-affected by a particular disease.
- Reduces Unnecessary Cost, Time and Pain
By getting vaccinated, you get rid of the potential expenses, time spent treating a disease, and pain related to it. If you get infected with a disease, it can take a long time to cure yourself completely of it.