Newsday today reported that some children haven fallen ill after getting vaccinations under the just ended immunization week for children under 5 years. The children received vaccinations for measles and polio and in addition they received vitamin A supplements. In 2009 The Standard also reported that vaccinated children fell ill under such an immunization programme.

Being a parent or a guardian you tend to panic when you learn of such reports or worse still when you experience this actually happening to your child. A child falling ill after being immunized is very frightening and it calls for the Ministry of Health to carry out investigations.

From my personal experience in the first few months I had to take my son for shots, I was very worried and would dread taking him. I would procrastinate but eventually I would find myself at the clinic. And after a few days those side effects, like fever would creep in. As a first time mom it took time for me to learn and really appreciate how immunization and vaccinations work. I would therefore, like to share a few insightful and educative sites with parents and guardians out there.

On the UNICEF website they describe how immunization works:

“Immunization works by tricking the body into believing it is experiencing a full-scale invasion by an infectious agent so that the immune system can fortify its defenses. During vaccination, a harmless version of a germ is introduced to the body and the immune system responds by producing antibodies to attack the intruder. Thereafter, a memory of this “invasion” remains so that the immune system can quickly recognize and neutralize disease-causing agents when they appear.”

Thus a child is likely to fall ill while the vaccine is at work. It is also asserted that some vaccines can even cause symptoms which seem to be very similar to the symptoms of the disease they are supposed to prevent. To get more understanding of how vaccinations are made and how they work in the body you can click on these links below.

How vaccines Prevent Disease – Centre for Disease Control and Prevention
How do vaccines work – Healthy Children.org
And to understand more on illnesses that occur after getting shots click here

Don’t forget that even adults need to get shots once in a long while. A tetanus booster is required periodically throughout life!

This entry was posted on June 26th, 2012 at 11:47 am by Elizabeth Nyamuda and is filed under Activism, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.