Are Vaccines Important?: HopeHealth

Are Vaccines Important?

story by Donna Tracy, Communications Coordinator, HopeHealth

Vaccine. Vaccination. First dose. Second dose. Lately, terms like these seem to be heavily used in all areas of the media. Of course, there is much focus on one significantly-trending vaccine: COVID-19. There is also a lot of focus on populations most at risk for complications from the virus, especially seniors.

While they are very important to the safety of our seniors, COVID-19 vaccines should not replace other less-trendy vaccines and preventive medicine. “Even before the onset of any symptoms, any virus can spread between persons by contact or through handling of shared objects,” said Dr. Heather Leisy, director of preventive medicine at the HopeHealth Medical Plaza in Florence.

Vaccines recommended for seniors by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention include:

Ages 65 and older: • Annual influenza shot

• Tdap booster every 10 years for tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (whooping cough) • 2 doses of zoster recombinant to prevent shingles • 1 or 2 doses of pneumococcal polysaccharide to protect against pervasive infections such as meningitis

Recommended for ages 65 or older with additional risk factors:

• 1 or 2 doses of MMR for measles, mumps, and rubella • 2 doses of the varicella vaccination (chickenpox) • 1 dose of pneumococcal conjugate to protect against infections such as pneumonia • 2 or 3 doses of hepatitis A and hepatitis B to prevent liver infections

• 1 or 2 doses of meningococcal A, C, W, Y to prevent meningitis • 2 or 3 doses of meningococcal B to prevent meningitis • 1 or 3 doses of haemophilus influenzae type b for protection against infections that can lead to severe pneumonia, meningitis, and other invasive diseases For those ages 50-64, the same vaccines are recommended in addition to one or two doses of MMR for measles, mumps, and rubella if not received earlier. Many vaccines may have been administered to an individual at a younger age and immunodeficient health conditions can impact the recommendation of any vaccine, so it is always important to have a conversation with your primary care provider to navigate the vaccination schedule for your personal health care. Each disease prevented through these vaccinations once ravaged populations just as virulently as COVID-19 is impacting the global population today.

• Vaccination efforts completely eradicated smallpox by 1980, an incurable disease that killed about 30 percent of those it affected - an estimated 300 million people in the 20th century, according to National Geographic data. • In the U.S., polio has been eradicated since 1979, and since 1988 global vaccination efforts have reduced the number of cases by more than 99 percent. While most of today’s U.S. population are too young to recall the devastation caused by polio, some seniors may still remember getting the vaccine on a sugar cube and individuals in their youth who were paralyzed by the disease. These successes and the significant decrease in instances of other once-prevalent diseases illustrate why vaccines have been described as one of most important medical discoveries in the last 200 years. Whether you are 1 or 100, vaccines are important and an essential part of preventing disease. Talk with your primary care provider today to make sure your vaccines are up to date.

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