Vaccination: One of the most important gifts of modern medicine!

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Introduction
Vaccination One of the most important gifts of modern medicine! By Dr Vera Machtelinckx, general practitioner
Ever since the Ministry of Public Health is responsible for administering systematically vaccines against tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough, many children's lives have been saved. The polio vaccine has been able to ban this horribly mutilating disease out of our modern world. Despite the fact that the spared grief and motherly concern can not be expressed in figures, prevention is treated in a stepmotherly way. In developing countries, a lot of energy is invested in organising large-scale vaccination campaigns against measles. In our countries there is also a vaccine against mumps and German measles. The past 20 years the hepatitis B vaccine, which is very useful for nurses and other nursing professions, has been added. Then the influenza vaccine, the hepatitis A vaccine and the pneumococcal vaccine were introduced.
A specialist explains
Dr P. Van Damme, a Belgian physician from Antwerp, is widely renowned for his acquirement concerning the hepatitis vaccination. I confronted him with an ever returning question: "A vaccine against this and that, injecting such a large amount of antigens, attenuated of course, during the course of ones life, is it scientifically justified?" His answer was very clear and reassuring: "Every day we are confronted with more antigens than the total of all those injected. This confrontation may cause disease, but the vaccines are attenuated versions of the pathogenic antigen and protect us from the serious disease profiles." The fact of having had many vaccinations should not be a reason to refuse new vaccinations. As Dr M. Walravens already concluded in his CICTD dossier, there is no single reason why CICTD patients should be advised against vaccinations.
Vaccines
The influenza vaccine and the pneumococcal vaccine are recommended for adults, like the hepatitis A vaccine for adolescents travelling to tropical countries, and the hepatitis B vaccine for people giving medical care. The influenza vaccine is repeated every year and offers a protection of 80 %. It is recommended for people above 65 and for people with lung or heart disease. For the active population it is suggested to avoid being down with the flue and being unable to work for 1-2 or 3 weeks during winter. The hepatitis B vaccine is given in 3 to 4 injections, depending on the scheme applied. The American scheme can be used for the population in general (0-1-6 months), while the scheme for a fast and high protection is recommended for people starting a traineeship in the medical care sector (0-1-2-12). The hepatitis A vaccine is given in two injections with an interval of 6 to 12 months. There is also a combined vaccine of hepatitis A and B that is given in three injections: the first two injections with a month in between and the third injection 6 months after the first one. In the future, this new vaccine will be highly recommended for adolescents. The pneumococcal vaccine is administered every five years to people above 65, and sometimes to younger people who are very susceptible to pneumococcal infections, because these microbes become more and more resistant against all sorts of antibiotics.
The press
Occasionally the press makes a fuss about the so-called side effects provoked by vaccinations and allusions are made to lupus-like reactions or flares of multiple sclerosis. These journalists should be sentenced to the stake for distorting information and for deterring people with chronical inflammatory disorders even more from vaccinations. Without a vaccination, they are even more exposed to infections and therefore the risk of the disease to flare up is bigger. A disease caused by a microbe or a virus signifies a greater risk for a CICTD patient to deteriorate than the existing vaccinations against these microbes or viruses. Back to Articles