As students head back to school, a checkup on which vaccines are needed is usually on the list. WTOP looks into which ones are especially important this year.
As students head back to school, a checkup on which vaccines are needed is usually on the list. WTOP looks into which ones are especially important this year.
“Vaccines are victims of their own success,” said Dr. David Higgins, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. “They have been so successful that we don’t routinely see diseases that many of our parents or grandparents saw, like polio or measles.”
He said some parents don’t want to give their children some vaccines because they haven’t heard of cases of these diseases recently and don’t believe it’s necessary.
“As pediatricians, we went into this field because we care deeply about the health of children, and we want to partner with parents to make sure they’re making decisions that are truly informed with good information to keep their children healthy,” Higgins said of how he would persuade parents to think otherwise.
So what are the vaccines that parents should put on their list?
“We’re seeing, across the country, outbreaks of measles, and we’re having one of our worst measles years in decades. Additionally, we’re seeing, unfortunately, outbreaks of pertussis, or whooping cough,” he said.
Measles is very contagious, and symptoms can set in anywhere from 72 hours to two weeks after exposure, which is why doctors encourage monitoring for the illness for up to two weeks.
And some of those cases have been extremely serious.
“We have had multiple cases where children, usually young infants, have died from whooping cough,” he said.
The outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illnesses could be indicative of changing attitudes toward vaccines. Nationally, the number of kindergartners getting required vaccines has dropped and the number of children with vaccine exemptions hit an all-time high. Higgins said that can be dangerous when those kids go back to school.
“It’s important to know that vaccines only keep these diseases at bay, and as soon as vaccination rates drop, it’s not a matter of if, but when, diseases like measles will come back into a community,” he said.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
Source link
