Comal County Public Health Adult Vaccinations
Adult Vaccination Saves Lives!
Did you know that most Americans who die each year from vaccine-preventable diseases are adults? While the childhood immunization program has been largely successful in controlling vaccine-preventable diseases in the U.S., this same widespread success has not been achieved with adult vaccinations. Adult vaccination rates remain low and this lack of protection results in more deaths each year than traffic accidents, breast cancer and HIV/AIDS.
Comal County Public Health offers the vaccines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to protect you from many serious diseases. Please call us today, at 830-221-1150, for more information or to make an appointment.
10 Reasons to Be Vaccinated
1. Vaccine-preventable diseases haven’t gone away.
he viruses and bacteria that we vaccinate against and that
cause illness and death still exist. Without the protection
of vaccines, we will experience more disease outbreaks, more
severe illnesses, and more deaths.
2. Vaccines will help keep you healthy.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends
vaccinations through your whole life to protect against many
infections. When you skip your vaccines, you leave yourself
vulnerable to illnesses such as shingles, pneumococcal
disease, influenza, and HPV and hepatitis B, both leading
causes of cancer.
3. Vaccines are as important to your overall health as
diet and exercise.
Like eating healthy foods, exercising, and getting regular
check-ups, vaccines play a vital role in keeping you
healthy. Vaccines are one of the simplest, most convenient,
and safest preventive care measures available.
4. Vaccination can mean the difference between life and death.
Vaccine-preventable infections are dangerous. Every year,
tens of thousands of US adults die from diseases they could
have been avoided with vaccination.
5.Vaccines are safe.
The US has the best post-licensure surveillance system in
the world. That’s why we can say with absolute confidence
that our vaccines are extremely safe. There is
extraordinarily strong data from many different medical
investigators all pointing to that same result. Make no
mistake; vaccines are among the safest products in all of
medicine.
6.Vaccines won’t give you the disease they are designed to prevent.
You cannot “catch” the disease from the vaccine. Some
vaccines contain “killed” viruses, and it is impossible to
get the disease from them. Others have weakened viruses
designed to ensure that you cannot catch the disease.
7.Young and healthy people can get very sick from
vaccine-preventable diseases, too.
Infants and the elderly are at a greater risk for serious
infections and complications in many cases, but
vaccine-preventable diseases can strike anyone. If you’re
young and healthy, getting vaccinated can help you stay that way.
8.Vaccine-preventable diseases are expensive.
An average influenza illness can last up to 15 days,
translating into five or six missed work days. Adults who
get hepatitis A lose an average of one month of work.
9.When you get sick, your children, grandchildren and
parents are at risk, too.
A vaccine-preventable disease that might make you sick for a
week or two could prove deadly for your children,
grandchildren, or parents if it spreads to them. When you
get vaccinated, you’re protecting yourself and your family.
For example, adults are the most common source of spreading
pertussis (whooping cough) infection to infants, which can
be deadly to infants. In 2010 alone, 25 US infants died from whooping cough.
10. Your family and coworkers need you.
Each year, millions of Americans get sick from
vaccine-preventable diseases, causing them to miss work and
leaving them unable to care for those who depend on them,
including their children and/or aging parents.
From: AdultVaccination.org