| Ouch! Those Vaccinations Keep
Adults and Teens Healthy Too
Immunization Awareness Week Focuses
on Disease Prevention
Tri-City Voice, September 26, 2006 Going to the doctor for shots…Probably not the greatest memory a person can
have from childhood. But those vaccinations we received as infants and children
most likely played a huge role in keeping us healthy into adulthood.
Vaccines are sometimes the only things standing between us and potentially
deadly diseases, according to Dr. Steven Curran, Washington Hospital Medical
Staff family practice physician and medical director of Washington Clinic/Warm
Springs and Washington Clinic/Newark and the Washington On Wheels (W.O.W.)
Mobile Health Clinic.
“Many of the vaccine-preventable diseases have no cures, so it is imperative
that we stop them with the use of vaccines,” Curran said. “It’s easy to forget
that hundreds of thousands of people used to die from diseases we can now
prevent. Vaccines are the reason, so we can’t afford to take them for granted.”
What may come as a surprise is that vaccines, which contain weakened or killed
viruses or bacteria that encourage the body to produce antibodies when
introduced into the bloodstream, are needed in adulthood to keep us protected.
National Adult Immunization Awareness Week (NAIAW) 2006, recognized Sept. 24 to
30 by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID), focuses on adult
and adolescent immunization.
Staying healthy as adults
Sherrie Kneebone, a nurse practitioner with the W.O.W. Mobile Health Clinic, is
part of a team under the direction of Dr. Curran that travels throughout the
Tri-City area providing needed preventive health care measures, such as
vaccinations, to underinsured and uninsured segments of the population, as well
as local businesses and schools.
Many members of the community she sees, Kneebone says, often are unaware of how
important vaccinations are for adults. For those concerned about the safety of
vaccines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that they
are among the safest medicines available and are a vital component of disease
prevention.
“Many people don’t recognize the importance of adult immunization until they are
confronted with an illness – either in themselves or someone close to them –
that may have been prevented by a vaccine,” according to Kneebone. “Often people
who come down with the flu are more likely to consider that flu shot that they
missed the next year.”
The flu vaccination, which individuals should receive annually, is among the
most important, especially for high risk populations, such as the elderly. In
the United States alone more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu
complications and about 36,000 people die from flu, according to CDC statistics.
Protect yourself
In addition to the flu vaccine there are a number of other vaccines that adults
and adolescents should receive. Some vaccines do not provide lifelong protection
from disease, so it’s important to find out from your physician which vaccines
you need to update and when.
“Some injections are boosters of vaccines that we had as children and we offer
the boosters at varying times dependent on the individual vaccine and the
information provided, which tells us how long it should offer effective
immunity,” Kneebone explains.
Other diseases that vaccines protect against include: measles, mumps, rubella,
Hepatitis B and Hepatitis A, tetanus (lockjaw), diphtheria, meningitis,
pneumonia and pertussis (whooping cough).
“It’s not that long ago people died of diphtheria, and that’s almost unheard of
today,” according to Dr. Curran. “Vaccines have made a huge impact on public
health.”
A good way to stay protected is to keep up-to-date with new vaccines as they are
released. It’s also important to check in with your doctor if you may be
traveling or if rates of certain diseases are higher where you live.
“Hepatitis A is not routinely recommended everywhere,” Curran says. “But in
places like California, Texas and Florida, where there are many more cases, we
do recommend it.”
Kneebone points out that adults who know they will be traveling out of the
country may benefit from the Hepatitis A series, which requires two doses at
least 6 months apart, and therefore requires some planning.
Keep records!
Individuals should try to keep track of their vaccination records since it’s
many times useful to know what they have and have not been immunized against.
“People should keep their records as they may be called upon at different times
during their lives,” Kneebone says. “It would be important to know when your
last tetanus shot was, as you may have to get an immunoglobulin injection if you
were not immunized within a certain time frame determined by the health care
provider.”
It’s also important to be aware of several new vaccinations that have recently
become available to aid in the prevention of various diseases, including
shingles, or herpes zoster, which is caused by the chickenpox virus that remains
in the nerve roots of all persons who had chickenpox and can come out in your
body again years later to cause illness, according to the CDC. To make sure you
are receiving appropriate vaccinations for you, talk to you physician.
A healthier community
The W.O.W. Mobile Health Clinic makes regularly scheduled stops at locations
within the Tri-City area. To see a schedule of stops, visit
www.whhs.com, click on “For Our Community,”
and select “W.O.W. Mobile Health Clinic” from the drop-down menu.
To find out more or to schedule an appointment, call (510) 608-3203. If your
company is interested in utilizing the Washington On Wheels Mobile Health Clinic
for occupational medicine services for your employees, call (510) 794-4671.
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