Protect Yourself and Those Around You with Vaccinations This Season
Roy C. Maynard, M.D., is the Medical Director for PHS. He serves as PHS’s clinical leader, working with the team to provide consultation and advice to ensure quality and effective care to children and their families in their own homes. He also leads implementation of clinical policies, procedures and programs to further enhance the best possible care for each child. He is a Neonatologist and Pediatric Pulmonologist, and serves as a staff physician at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics in Minneapolis, Minn.
In 1900, the number one cause of death in Minneapolis was typhoid fever, and the average life expectancy was 48 years old – today the average expectancy is 78 years and typhoid fever is nowhere to be found, thanks to vaccinations that eradicated the disease.
But in today’s world, when diseases – including those that are vaccine-preventable – break out anywhere, their spread to the United States is only a plane flight away.
Much of our patient population cannot receive vaccinations due to their weakened immune systems, and as a result rely on herd immunity to keep them safe from otherwise-avoidable diseases. In the past century, there has been no other innovation that can beat what childhood vaccinations and immunization programs have done to save children’s lives.
Read below for Dr. Maynard’s top 3 reasons to get immunized with the flu shot:
Why Should I Get a Flu Shot?
We live in a world with no boundaries
Everyday, we are exposed to a new disease through those we come into contact with. Trade and travel run our world, and increase the risk for transmissions of infectious diseases through the population.
- There are 7.7 billion people on the planet. In 2014, 20% (1.7 billion) of the world’s population, traveled across international borders
- Today alone, approximately 60,000 large cargo ships are on oceans
We have access to an effective vaccinations
While we don’t have vaccinations for all diseases, we do have one for influenza that works. It is effective, safe, and readily available
Protection
Protect yourself, protect your family, protect those are you – including patients who are not able to immunized.
Originally published: October 14, 2016