Don’t Neglect To Vaccinate Your Children
PINEVILLE — You’ve got the backpacks, new clothes and school supplies purchased. There’s just one more thing to do to ensure your child is ready to go back to school — get immunizations.
School-age children, from preschoolers to college students, need vaccines. When you keep your children’s vaccinations current, you protect them from 14 diseases that can be serious, even life-threatening. You also help protect their teachers, their classmates, your family and the entire community.
For more than 50 years, immunizations have helped children stay healthy. They are safe and effective — so effective, in fact, that many vaccine-preventable diseases have become very rare.
“Some parents wonder why vaccines are even needed since diseases like polio, rubella and chicken pox are not as common anymore,” said Paige Behm, administrator at the McDonald County Health Department, “but it is because of immunizations that our children don’t have to suffer with these illnesses. If we stop giving vaccines, the bacteria and viruses that cause these diseases would begin to infect more and more children again.”
Missouri requires young children entering school or child care to be current on the childhood immunization schedule. Preteens, ages 11-12, should also have HPV, Tdap and meningococcal conjugate vaccine for continued protection against the HPV virus, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis and bacterial meningitis. Students entering the 12th grade are now required to have the meningitis vaccine. Students headed to college should be vaccinated against bacterial meningitis, tetanus, pertussis and diphtheria. Young women, under age 27, and young men, under age 22, should also be vaccinated against HPV if they did not complete the 3-dose vaccination series during adolescence. For a complete list of recommended vaccines for your child, talk to your child’s healthcare provider or contact the McDonald County Health Department.
“We encourage all parents to make good decisions when it comes to vaccinating their children,” added Behm. “Ensuring children stay current on their vaccinations protects our schools and our community from outbreaks that can cause unnecessary illnesses and deaths.”