Immunizations
Immunization is a fast and easy way to keep you, your family, and your community safe from certain communicable diseases. Whether you’re planning a trip, have children who need their vaccines to start school, or have elderly loved ones who are susceptible to illness, we offer a wide array of vaccines to keep you healthy.
What are Immunizations?
Vaccines are medical preparations that help your body identify and fight against certain diseases. Vaccines are generally administered as an injection, but they may also come in oral and nasal formulations.
Vaccines are important because they prevent you from getting sick from diseases and illnesses that can cause serious and potentially life-long complications. Vaccines also help other people from getting sick because they minimize the disease’s ability to spread from person to person.
Vaccines are medical marvels that are responsible for ridding the world of many deadly diseases. For this reason, many schools require children to have them before attending class, and your doctor may recommend them before you travel to other parts of the world.
How Do Vaccines Work?
When you contract a disease like the flu, your body recognizes it and then gets to work fighting it off. After you’ve recovered, your body remembers the flu so that if you encounter it again, you’ll be better prepared to fight it.
Many vaccines contain weakened or inactive forms of various diseases. When you get immunized, your body senses these foreign cells and easily defeats them. The next time you encounter that disease, your body will already know what to do to rid it from your body.
Types of Vaccines
Not all vaccines are the same. There are actually several different classes, each working in a different way to protect you.
- Whole pathogen vaccine: Contains a weakened or inactive pathogen that your body can easily fight off.
- Subunit vaccine: Contains a portion of the pathogen for your body to learn and fight off.
- Nucleic acid vaccine: Rather than contain the actual pathogen, these vaccines instead carry instructions for how to fight the disease.
- Viral vectored vaccine: Contains a different, harmless virus to pass on instructions on how to fight off a more severe virus.
Achieving Immunity
Thanks to vaccines, there are a number of diseases for which humans can achieve 100% immunity. This means that if you are exposed to one of these viruses, you won’t become seriously ill. Below are a just a few of the illnesses that can be prevented through use of vaccines:
- Cervical cancer
- Measles
- Mumps
- Polio
- Rabies
- Tetanus
- Typhoid
- Yellow Fever
SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19
SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus that has been wreaking havoc across the world. It causes a disease called COVID-19 that can be serious and deadly. To date, the coronavirus has killed millions worldwide and continues to do so. Receiving the COVID-19 vaccine is a safe and effective way to slow the spread of the coronavirus and prevent serious illness.
Get Immunized Today
Contact us today to learn more about which vaccines we offer and which might be a good choice for yourself and your family. We can administer many vaccines in the comfort of our office for your convenience.
