Diseases that have been affecting humanity for many years have ceased to be feared today with the protective effect of the vaccine. Although some parents still hesitate to vaccinate their children today, experts say that we owe our survival against diseases to vaccination.
Turkey İşbank Subsidiary Bayındır Kavaklıdere Hospital Pediatrics Specialist Dr. Füsun Kitapçı Uysal made important explanations about the development of the vaccine:
– Vaccine means dead or weakened bacteria and viruses injected into the body to provide immunity against some diseases. If you are alive now, it may be because your mother was vaccinated against tetanus or because your father was vaccinated against cholera. Maybe you wouldn’t have seen these days if you hadn’t been vaccinated against measles when you were little. You may not have a fear of flying, but your child can get meningitis any time from someone coughing on an airplane.
– Microbes can settle in our body for many reasons. Person-to-person transmission is possible through diarrhea, sneezing, coughing, itching, open wounds, blood and body fluids. Mosquitoes or ticks also carry disease-causing germs. Oral ingestion of microorganisms in the foods we eat or drink without doing anything can cause various diseases in our body. Although most of the diseases that were deadly in the past were controlled by vaccines, nowadays, when touristic travels and migrations increase and borders are lifted, diseases can spread very quickly through people who are not vaccinated or who are carriers of the disease.
– The primary duty of the physician is to ensure that the healthy person maintains their health, that is, preventive medicine. As a Child Health and Diseases Specialist, it is our most important duty to monitor the development, nutrition and immunization of the child.
Healthy generations with vaccination
– Thanks to all the technological developments that lasted for centuries and accelerated in the last century, we are going to space, the other end of the Earth We can talk to you instantly, we can visit the Louvre Museum from where we sit. With MRI, we can diagnose cancer and treat many diseases with new drugs.
– If we can be protected from smallpox, which kills thirty out of 100 people, rubella, which causes up to 40% disabled birth in the womb, rabies or neonatal tetanus, which has no chance of recovery, if we have not encountered polio cases in our country since 1998, We owe a lot to the scientists who found the vaccines, to the health workers who spread it and put it into our daily lives. Preventive medicine and vaccines, which are its cornerstones, should not be neglected, and we should not listen to unscientific rumors.
Vaccination since ancient civilizations
– Although vaccination is now a health information that everyone knows closely, the emergence of the vaccine lasts for many years. According to the written records, in 560 BC, the Chinese had primitive methods of vaccination defined as “Variolation”
– Variolation is the inhalation of powders into the nose by drying the crusts of the wounds of the patients who have mild smallpox.
– Witnessing the variolation method in Ottoman baths, Lady Mary Montagu, the wife of the British Consul, wrote a letter to the Pope asking permission to have her child vaccinated against smallpox in 1718.
In 1796, Edward Jenner broke new ground in medicine scientifically by developing the idea of smallpox vaccine ‘Cowpox’ or ‘Vaksinia’ , which is the first live viral vaccine and established the foundations of modern immunology. It was discovered that the source was microbes.
– Pasteur administered the rabies vaccine, which he had proven to be effective in dogs, in 1885, to a person named Joseph Meister, who had been bitten by a dog. This application is the most important breakthrough in human immunization. In 1892, a researcher named Laffnike developed the cholera vaccine, and in 1896 Wright developed the typhoid vaccine. The tuberculosis (TB) vaccine, which we know today as BCG, was developed by Calmette and Guerin in 1921. In 1927, Ramon and Zoeller produced the tetanus vaccine. Various vaccines have been introduced since then, one after the other.
The most important gift to human history
Vaccine is one of the important inventions in human history. Humanity has been dealing with infectious diseases for a long time, and with the discovery of sterilization and vaccines, very important strides have been made in medicine. In the absence of the vaccine:
– Plague epidemics killed a quarter of the European population in 1346-1352.
– The Inca population in Mexico, which was 20 million in 1618, had decreased to 1.6 million due to smallpox.
– In 1779, Hawaii’s population had dropped from 500 thousand to 84 thousand due to typhoid fever.
– In the 1880s, nine out of every 100 natives in Canada suffered from tuberculosis.
– After World War II, 21 million people died from flu (H1N1).
Vaccination continues for life
Before all these data are forgotten, we should follow our children’s vaccinations carefully. Even as they get older, we should contact their pediatrician or family doctor at least once a year to learn about reminder doses and new vaccines. We should not lose vaccination cards, which are important in vaccination follow-up. Finally, let’s fight information pollution by choosing reliable sources.
