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Sickle Cell Disease
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Five Tips
To Help Prevent Infection
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Common illnesses, like the flu, can quickly become
dangerous for a person with sickle cell disease. The
best defense is to take simple steps to help prevent
infections.
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Hand Washing.
Washing your hands is one of the best ways to help
prevent getting an infection. People with sickle
cell disease, their family, and other caretakers
should wash their hands with soap and clean water
many times each day. If you don’t have soap and
water, you can use gel hand cleaners with alcohol in
them.
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Times to wash your hands:BEFORE
AFTER
- Using the bathroom
- Blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing
- Shaking hands
- Touching people or things that can carry
germs, such as:
- Diapers or a child who has used the toilet - Food that is not cooked (raw meat, raw eggs,
or unwashed vegetables) - Animals or animal waste - Trash - A sick person
- Food Safety.
Bacteria, called salmonella, in some foods can be
especially harmful to children with sickle cell
disease. How to stay safe when cooking and eating:
- Wash hands, cutting boards, counters,
knives, and other utensils after they touch
uncooked foods.
- Wash vegetables and fruit well before eating
them.
- Cook meat until it’s well done. The juices
should run clear and there should be no pink
inside.
- Do not eat raw or undercooked eggs. Raw eggs
might be hiding in homemade hollandaise sauce,
caesar and other homemade salad dressings,
tiramisu, homemade ice cream, homemade
mayonnaise, cookie dough, and frostings.
- Do not eat raw or unpasteurized milk or
other dairy products (cheeses). Make sure these
foods have a label that says they are
“pasteurized”.
- Avoid Reptiles.
Bacteria, called salmonella, that some reptiles have
can be especially harmful to children with sickle
cell disease. Make sure children stay away from
turtles, snakes, and lizards.
- Vaccines.
Vaccines are a great way to prevent many serious
infections. Children with sickle cell disease should
get all the regular childhood vaccines, plus a few
extra.
The extra ones are:
- Flu vaccine every year after 6 months of
age.
- A pneumococcal vaccine (called 23-valent
pneumococcal vaccine) at 2 and 5 years of age.
- Meningococcal vaccine (for some children).
Click here for the regular childhood vaccination
schedule. Don’t forget to add the extra vaccines
listed previously for children with sickle cell
disease.
Click here to find information for parents about
vaccinations.
Adults should have the flu vaccine every year, as
well as the pneumococcal vaccine and any others
recommended by a doctor.
- Penicillin.
Take penicillin (or other antibiotic prescribed by a
doctor) every day until at least 5 years of age.
To see more tip sheets, click on one of the links
below:
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