TAKE A SHOT!

Should you, shouldn’t you – there’s so much conflicting advice out there, what’s a new mom supposed to do? Here’s the latest information on vaccinations so you can make an informed decision

having your child vaccinated will in fact prevent your child being a link in the transmission into somebody else,” she says.

This is important because there are some people who are unable to be vaccinated, for example children who are too young (below the age at which you can give a vaccine for measles, for example, younger than nine months); or for children with specific medical conditions, such as leukemia, who are unable to be vaccinated. Dr Suchard also explains that vaccines are not effective for everyone, so there will be about five percent of the community who are susceptible to infection, even though they have been vaccinated.

“Vaccinating your child helps protect the whole community. It’s also critical to have high vaccination levels as part of a coordinated global effort to try to interrupt transmission of dangerous circulating viruses and bacteria and to ensure coverage if there is an infected traveller who comes into the country, or any importation of a virus,” she says. A success story of global vaccination programmes is the eradication of smallpox in the 1970s, which means no one needs to be vaccinated against it anymore. Smallpox may be one less vaccine your baby requires, but over the course of the next 12 years she will get close to 20 shots. Getting your head around the fact that she needs to be injected with a disease to ultimately protect her can be difficult, but understanding how vaccines work should allay your fears.

When you’ve had an infection once, you should be protected against acquiring that infection again – you will be immune to it. Vaccines mimic this natural infection by taking a small part or a weakened form of the virus or bacteria and giving it to a person so that they can mount an immune response (with little to no side effect). “This means the next time they encounter the organism that causes an infection their immune system will immediately recognise that organism and respond to it, preventing them from becoming ill,” explains Dr Allison Glass, a specialist virologist at Lancet laboratories.