Before the introduction of pertussis immunization in 1950s, the average number of notifications in England and Wales exceeded 100,000. In 1972, when vaccine acceptance was over eighty percent, there were only two hundred and sixty-nine notifications of the pertussis. The public anxieties were about the safety as well as the efficacy of the vaccine, followed by a report published about a possible link between the vaccine and it making children have brain damage. This caused medical coverage drop down to thirty percent, in 1975, resulting in a major epidemic in 1977 to 1979 as well as 1981 to 1983, resulting in more than 200,000 extra notifications of the illness and in 100 deaths from 1970s to the 1980s. The vaccine coverage steadily began to increase over the next few years as the public as well as professional confidence in the vaccine was beginning to restore, reaching up to 95% by 1995 and started to stay between 93% and 95% until in 2010 when it spiked up to 96%. …show more content…
This is reflected by the demands for more serology testing, which the method of confirmation in adolescents as well as adults who typically present with milder features later in the course of the sickness. However, failing immunity following vaccination as well as natural infection is also likely to be an important factor. This increased activity has continued through the first quarter of 2012 and has extended into three month of infant age. Although a greater number of cases are being confirmed in older age groups, the incidence in these age groups remains relatively low. The name of the virus is called Pertussis, or whooping
Whooping cough is a highly contagious and acute respiratory disease caused by an aerobic Gram negative encapsulated coco-bacillus bacterium, Bordetella pertussis. It is a strict human pathogen with no known animal or environmental reservoirs and an air-borne disease. On inhalation, Bordetella pertussis colonizes the ciliated cells of the bronchio-epithelium to cause disease characterised by; epithelial damage, hyper mucus secretion, pulmonary edema and paroxysmal coughing. It is often accompanied by pneumonia, otitis edema, seizures, post-tussive vomiting and encephalopathy (1).
Pertussis: Pertussis also known as whopping cough is a highly contagious bacterial disease that causes an uncontrollable, severe coughing. It is a serious disease that can affect individual of all ages with severe complication resulting in permanent disability in infants and lastly death. The fact that this 7-months old baby stay up night, inability to sleep can make it hard to breathe. Burns, Cotter, Harvill, Hewlett, Merkel, Stibitz & Quinn explained that pertussis is an upper respiratory infection caused by the Bordetella pertussis bacteria in addition to the systemic manifestations such as “lympocytosis, dysregulated secr...
Health care is a major global issue that affects millions of people every day. In this paper I am going to review an important health care topic that includes childhood immunizations and religious exemption policies. Immunizations are one of the most cost-effective public health achievements that protect both individuals and the community as a whole. Vaccinated individuals help the community by creating what is called herd immunity for those who cannot be vaccinated due to age or current health conditions get some protection because the spread of contagious disease is contained. High vaccination rates and low incidences of diseases indicators of successful immunization programs.
Paralytic poliomyelitis, "polio", held a reign of terror over this nation for decades. But unless you were born before 1955, polio may seem to be just another ephemeral disease that has been nonexistent for years. Those born before 1955 remember having a great fear of this horrible disease which crippled thousands of once active, healthy children. This disease had no cure and no identified causes, which made it all the more terrifying. People did everything that they had done in the past to prevent the spread of disease, such as quarantining areas, but these tactics never seemed to work. Polio could not be contained. Many people did not have the money to care for a family member with polio. This was one of the reasons the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was organized. The March of Dimes, the fund raiser headed by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, raised thousands and thousands of dollars to help people care for their polio stricken family members and to aid in the cost of research for a vaccine that would put an end to this misery that affected the lives of so many people.
The effectiveness of vaccinations continues to be proven (Malone and Hinaman n.d.). For example, after development of the measles vaccine and the implementation of the vaccination program, the number of reported measles cases declined from 57,345 in 1977 to 2587 in 1984( CDC 2010 ). However, even though vaccinations have been proven safe and effective; there are still risks as well as the implication that not every person who is vaccinated will obtain immunity. That being said, serious damage from vaccination is a rare occurrence (Malone and Hinaman). A Glanz study (2013) from the Vaccin...
Vaccine safety is one of the most controversial topics in today’s public discourse. Everyone has heard of them, but few know why they are so encouraged. A vaccine contains a weak or dead version of a microbe. This creates a small scale invasion of the immune system, which activates cells to destroy the microbe. Once these cells have been made they are always there to provide protection. This protection is immunity, for those cells are then able to recognize any live version of the same microbe and attack it immediately. This can save lives but also be dangerous, vaccines carry many other components which can cause side effects. These could be simple adverse effects such as a small cold or, in the rare case,
“Vaccinations are causing a major upsurge in childhood diseases, adult maladies, and even deadly ailments such as Gulf War Syndrome and Lou Gehrig’s disease” (Blaylock). Every now and then an individual’s doctor calls telling them about the latest vaccine they should receive. The person immediately schedules a time to come in and get it done. But do they even give a second thought about it? Have they ever thought that maybe they do not need another vaccination? Many people have not taken the time to seriously think about the process of immunization. The truth is, there are many dangers that the average person should be unaware of. Rarely do vaccines actually accomplish what the public has been told. In fact, a lot of vaccines contain harmful substances that have been linked to disorders such as autism. The lack of education and dishonesty from doctors are putting people in danger of health problems without even realizing. Many parents feel obligated for their children to get vaccinated because of school, not knowing they have the alternative option of refusing immunization.
(Jane C Finlay, Noni E MacDonald, 2001). Working with Vaccine -hesitant parents. Canadian Paediatric Society. Retrieved May 3, 2013, from http://www.cps.ca
Vaccines have been used to prevent diseases for centuries, and have saved countless lives of children and adults. The smallpox vaccine was invented as early as 1796, and since then the use of vaccines has continued to protect us from countless life threatening diseases such as polio, measles, and pertussis. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2010) assures that vaccines are extensively tested by scientist to make sure they are effective and safe, and must receive the approval of the Food and Drug Administration before being used. “Perhaps the greatest success story in public health is the reduction of infectious diseases due to the use of vaccines” (CDC, 2010). Routine immunization has eliminated smallpox from the globe and led to the near removal of wild polio virus. Vaccines have reduced some preventable infectious diseases to an all-time low, and now few people experience the devastating effects of measles, pertussis, and other illnesses.
According to the Website Medicine Net, Whooping Cough (pertussis) is an acute, highly contagious respiratory infection that is initiated by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. Furthermore, Whooping Cough routinely sways infants and young children but can be stopped by immunization with the pertussis vaccine. Additionally from my research in Seattle Times it states that California had more than 9,000 situations, including 10 deaths. Washington has had 10 times the cases reported in 2011, and so has Wisconsin with almost 2,000 cases this year. although young kids are in much crisis then adults to getting influenced by the Whooping Cough due to not getting the vaccine when enrolling in a middle school or high school. The relationship between the pertussis vaccines and the present outbreak of the Whooping Cough is that in their states health officials are endeavoring to get any person they can vaccinated before the whooping hack disperse and sway more people because it was said that some persons may not be adept to get vaccinated due to having critical allergies, weak immune system from ...
North American children are now the most vaccinated on earth. Children receive about thirty-three doses of ten vaccinations by the age of five years. Not only do children need a separate vaccine for most diseases (hepatitis B, polio, Hib, and chicken pox are single vaccines; DTaP and MMR are multiple) but they generally need more than one dose of each vaccine. Because of the many vaccines needed, vaccination is an extremely controversial topic in the United States Today. Whatever side of the aisle you may fall with regard to your opinion about vaccination, one thing is for certain: the choice to vaccinate or not is a decision that has the potential to greatly impact the health of you and most importantly, your children for the rest of their lives.
For example, in China, the measles vaccine consisting of two doses was first introduced in the National Expanded Program on Immunization. The Zhejiang provincial EPI program noticed that measles was beginning to decrease due to the vaccine, while mumps and rubella was still spreading. This is when the MMR vaccine was introduced and implemented. By 2007 the second dose of MV was replaced by the MMR vaccine. Following this development the rate of measles reached a historical low in 2011 due to the vaccine produced by the EPI. Not only did the cases of measles decrease but so did the cases of rubella with the introduction of the combined vaccine (He, n.p.). Additionally, a record 9,120 cases of pertussis were reported in California in 2010 the most since 1947. A study conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics was done to determine how this disease was spreading. Their results showed that among other factors the large amount of unvaccinated children in one area was a major contributor to the clusters of pertussis. There was a strong correlation between communities with a large number of unvaccinated children and pertussis outbreaks in California. This could have been avoided due to the fact that pertussis is a vaccine-preventable disease. The importance of vaccines can be seen through the results of this study, which show that parents intentionally avoiding the
This is known as herd immunity or community immunity and it “occurs when the disease-resistant portion of a community provides a degree of protection for susceptible individuals” (LaPensee1). The main idea of this is that disease outbreaks causing deaths can be prevented with vaccines. When the majority of the community is immunized and healthy, one sick and contagious person will not cause everyone to become sick, although those who are not immunized will become sick. Therefore, if the majority of the population is immunized and healthy, the rest will get some protection because the disease can be contained. The reason behind infectious diseases returning from the 1920s, whooping cough for example, is because many chose not to vaccinate their children because of the autism scare. Now the numbers for children with whooping cough are increasing. “In 2012, around 48,000 cases of pertussis were reported in the United States, the most since 1955. This increase may be attributed in part to increased recognition of whooping cough in older children and adults, along with physicians who are diagnosing and reporting whooping cough more accurately and often, in both its classic and milder forms. Several pertussis outbreaks have occurred in areas with lower-than-average vaccination rates in children and adults who have frequent contact with infants and young children
Hospital admissions, and serious cases of the flu have dropped with the increase in flu vaccination coverage. Most websites that cover vaccines are pro-immunization or neutral. Many people did not follow the preventative measures recommended by health officials during the 2009-10 influenza pandemic (Covolo, 2013). This may have been one of the reasons the flu had become such a major problem than anticipated. Most people are in support of vaccinations and as Marie McCormick states in her article titled Off The Cuff: Childhood Vaccinations: Good News/Bad News for Harvard Public
Those who choose not to vaccinate their children are endangering the health of those unable to be vaccinated themselves, such as infants, pregnant people, and the immunocompromised, by jeopardizing community immunity. According to vaccine.gov, a federal government website managed by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, community immunity or “herd immunity” occurs when “a critical portion of the community is immunized against a contagious disease, most members of the community are protected against that disease because there is little opportunity for an outbreak” (Community Immunity). An infographic featured in an NPR article entitled “How Vaccine Fears Fueled the Resurgence of Preventable Diseases” illustrated the rise in measles cases in Western Europe and of pertussis (whooping cough) cases in the U.S (Doucleff). In the first eight months of 2014, there were eighteen measles outbreaks, and six hundred cases of measles.