Vaccinations are among the most powerful tools modern medicine provides for public health. It’s estimated that before 2040, as many as 50 million deaths will be prevented by their protection, and whether it’s measles, hepatitis, or COVID-19 and its variants, vaccines save lives around the world.
While vaccines give immediate protection to the individual, they also play an invaluable role within the larger community and public health sphere.
It’s normal to have questions about what vaccines might be best for you and your family. When it comes to these inquiries, know that you can contact Community Pharmacy and our trained team will give you the best information possible.
What Vaccinations Do
Vaccines are a modern marvel of scientific engineering, as they prepare the body for various diseases before they are ever actually encountered. By introducing a small, contained version of the virus, the body’s natural defense system reacts and begins to produce antibodies to combat the threat if it encounters it again in the future.
This essentially acts as a practice round for the body, so when the real virus is encountered, it has a response prepared and ready.
While vaccines do not outright stop an individual from contracting disease, they are proven to be incredibly effective at reducing the severity of symptoms for patients. This helps support a higher level of public health as a whole, as diseases spread slower and with fewer critical cases that require hospitalization.
How This Helps Serve Public Health
Vaccinations are a crucial component of the public health defense network. While they immediately help the individual avoid becoming seriously ill, they also stop the healthcare system as a whole from becoming overrun.
When major outbreaks like COVID-19 occurred and overwhelmed hospital occupancy capacity, the limitation of hospital beds and resources made treatment for unrelated issues like car accident victims, routine surgery, and other common cases more difficult to treat and perform in a safe and timely fashion. Ultimately, this made all injuries and diseases far more potentially dangerous. By cutting cases that require hospitalization down by an even small degree, a community’s health stands to greatly benefit.
Some vaccines slow the spread of contagious diseases, and others help nullify the most negative effects. Both of these serve to help keep hospital occupancy levels low, so medical resources and personnel can be directed where they are needed most.
The Value of Vaccines
Vaccines grant peace of mind to the recipient and require only a little foresight to schedule and attain.
While common side effects for most injections include muscle soreness, joint aches, and temporary fatigue, these usually only last one to two days for most vaccines. These are well worth avoiding the full-blown effects of the disease, whether it is a new flu strain or variant of COVID-19.
Unique medical history does affect what vaccines might be best for you and your family, and if you are in the process of making this decision, contact Community Pharmacy today. Together, we can talk over any specific concerns and needs and then set a course of action for your vaccination plan.
For both the individual and the community at large, vaccines are an essential cornerstone of public health that helps ensure the medical system continues to function unimpeded.
