THE human body has its own personal military system called the immune system, which is at constant battle with invaders i.e. germs. Like any good military, the immune system has its own intelligence agency which keeps tabs on all germs the body has been exposed to, storing information and developing weapons needed to fight future invasions of disease and in doing so creating immunity to disease; this process is called immunisation.

Thanks to modern medicine we can now develop immunity without actually suffering the disease and its complications. This process is called vaccination and usually involves injecting either a weakened form of the microorganism, parts of the organism, its toxins, or its protein into the body.

For example, two doses of the measles vaccine are 97 per cent effective at preventing measles, with a 99pc reduction in disease compared to a pre-vaccination era. Common complications from measles include ear infections, pneumonia and diarrhoea; one out of 1,000 measles cases will develop a brain infection (encephalitis) resulting in permanent brain damage; One to two out of 1,000 measles cases will die from respiratory or neurological complications; Subacute sclerosing pan encephalitis a rare but fatal degenerative disease of the nervous system resulting in rapid deterioration and death can develop seven to 10 years after contracting measles.

Through repeated and large-scale surveillance and research programmes vaccines continue to be shown to be a safe and effective way of preventing disease. As of 2019 we now have vaccines against )20 diseases. Through vaccinations we have eradicated smallpox. Polio has also been eradicated from all countries except for in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In Pakistan the expanded programme on immunisation launched in 1978 supplies free WHO prequalified vaccines for all children under 18 months of age. We are going through a phase of vaccine lethargy, meaning that awareness is waning as we no longer see the disease around us and remain unaware of its possible serious consequence. Together with false information regarding vaccines, this has resulted in stagnation of vaccination rates, and a return of vaccine preventable disease. So please, don’t procrastinate, vaccinate.

Dr Anokhi Khanum

Karachi

Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2019