How vaccines can save your life

Protect yourself and those around you this month! Immunization is vital in protecting your loved ones, the elderly, and people who might be immunocompromised. With a simple prick, you can prevent costly diseases and more!

Reasons to get up to date on vaccines:

Any delay in routine vaccinations can deter your health, especially with new various COVID variants and new illnesses coming to light. Make sure to talk to your doctor/health care provider to get caught up.

• For the kids. Vaccinations can help the kids in your life from diseases that can result in severe complications.

• A matter of life & death. People with impaired immune systems sometimes cannot develop immunity even with vaccination. Their protection comes from the community being vaccinated.

• Diseases are very costly! Vaccinations cost way less than the numerous medical bills.

• Healthy people get sick. A vaccine can help your immune system fight diseases better.

• Preventable diseases. To keep your childhood immunity from fading, you must keep your vaccines up to date for safety purposes.

Some Facts

In a study by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, over 50,000 U.S adults pass away yearly from vaccine-preventable diseases. Vaccinated children born during 1994-2018 will help prevent over 936,000 deaths, 8 million hospitalizations, and around 419 million illnesses in the U.S.

• Pregnant people should get vaccines too! The flu and other common sicknesses can pose a significant threat to pregnant people whose system is constantly changing.

• Cancer Prevention. HPV is preventable cancer. However, over 35k people in the U.S are diagnosed with it yearly. On the other hand, your chances of getting liver cancer by getting the Hepatitis B vaccine lowers.

• Vaccines are safe! Before becoming a vaccine, the vaccine goes through years of testing and research before being licensed by the FDA and CDC.

Where to find help

The vaccine world can be very confusing and frustrating. We highly recommend talking to your doctor, but for now, here are some tools to help you.

• Take the vaccine test! Not sure what you need? This test can show you what vaccines you may need and answer some of your questions.

• COVID-19 myth buster. Don’t believe every myth you hear. Learn about the vaccines and where you can get them.

• Paying for vaccines. Your private insurance usually covers most vaccines. If you don’t have insurance, you can get help with coverage.

• Traveling? Find out what vaccines you need to travel safely from malaria to more common vaccines.

Get back on the vaccine track this August with National Immunization Awareness Month! For more information, visit the CDC.

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*Sources: CDC.gov, National Foundation for Infectious Diseases