HHS HealthBeat (November 13, 2007)

Healthier kids through immunizations

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Kids might not share toys but they don’t mind sharing germs. Mix still-developing immune systems with infectious bacteria and viruses, and things spread. Parents of kids in day care know all about it.

But researchers say things are getting better, with parents getting kids vaccinated. It seems to be creating a herd effect – with more kids vaccinated, germs have more trouble finding kids to infect.

An infectious disease specialist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Larry Pickering, talked about it at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

Pickering says that, to help protect their kids and others, parents should start immunizations from babyhood.

``We have a new cohort born – four million children, born every year – and we’ve got to make sure they get immunized every year. So it’s a continuing process.’’  (7 seconds)

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: May, 26 2008