Reduce Infection, Sepsis Risk: National Immunization Awareness Month

August is National Immunization Awareness Month. Conversations around immunizations tend to focus on the vaccinations given to children, to prevent or reduce the risk of diseases like whooping cough (pertussis), German measles (rubella), and chicken pox (varicella) – to name a few. But immunizations are needed throughout adulthood too. Also, people who travel to certain countries may be denied entry if they don’t have proof of immunizations to diseases not usually seen in North America, like yellow fever.

When you contract a virus, such as meningitis or measles, your body tries to fight it. If it’s successful and the illness goes away, you develop an immunity to the disease and you should not get it again. This is called natural immunity. However, these illnesses, including the so-called childhood diseases like chicken pox, are serious and can cause long-lasting damage to your body, and even sepsis and death. Vaccinations significantly reduce the damage that can be caused by many common viruses, and even some bacteria. In the early 1900s, each year in the United States an average of 503,282 people died of measles. Vaccinations against the illness reduced the number of people who became ill and, in 1990, only 89 people in the U.S. died from measles.

How Vaccines Work

Vaccines stimulate your immune system into producing antibodies against specific viruses without the actual disease or infection. They trick your body into thinking it had the illness. The vaccines contain a killed or weakened organism of the particular viruses, imitating the infection.

Vaccines do not give you the illness. Some people aren’t convinced though. For example, they may tell you of a time when they received the seasonal influenza vaccine and then the next day, they had the flu. But it can take anywhere from several days to a few weeks for vaccinations to become effective, depending on the vaccine. If you get the flu vaccine on a Tuesday and you come down with the flu on the weekend, this is not caused by the vaccine. It’s likely you were exposed to the influenza virus just before your vaccination (it can take up to four days to make you sick) or shortly after. It takes up to two weeks for the flu vaccine to be fully effective.

Recommended Vaccines

Children begin receiving vaccines at only 2 months, with the DTaP vaccine, which prevents diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis. It is divided into four doses, at ages 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, and between 15 and 18 months. Other vaccines for chicken pox, hepatitis A and B, measles, and more, are given throughout childhood, either as new vaccines or boosters. Experts recommend that young teens – both boys and girls – receive the HPV vaccine, to reduce the risk of contracting the human papillomavirus (HPV), which is known to cause cancer.

Adults also need vaccines, most commonly the annual flu vaccine and a tetanus booster every 10 years. Doctors recommend that older adults also get vaccines against pneumonia and shingles. If you aren’t sure about what vaccines you should get, the CDC provides Adult Vaccine Assessment Tool.

Side Effects

Vaccines are medications and like all medications, there are possible side effects. The most common ones are pain at the injection site, muscle pain, fatigue, and headache. Some people may develop a fever. Serious side effects, or adverse effects, can happen, but they are rare. Adverse events can be reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), through their Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS.

Sepsis Alliance supports and encourages the use of recommended vaccines to help reduce the risk of infection, which – in turn – reduces the risk of developing sepsis. The more we do to prevent infections from occurring in the first place, the lower the risk of sepsis ever being an issue.