This week is National Infant Immunization Week. The week was started in 1994 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to celebrate the importance of vaccines and protecting infants from vaccine-preventable diseases, according to Washington County Public Health nurse Lynn Fisher.
Though vaccination is a common practice today, Fisher stresses the importance still of spreading awareness, “A lot of parents, because vaccines have become so successful, they are so successful, parents don’t recognize that vaccine preventable diseases still circulate, they aren’t aware that these diseases still circulate around the United States and around the world. So it’s really important to be reminded that they do still circulate around the planet. We’ve had several examples recently. Back in 2014 we had the measles outbreak at Disneyland and just occurring now there are some small pockets of mumps occurring across the United States, so these diseases are still around, and still possible for people to get exposed to them.”
Fisher says the U.S. has a safe vaccine supply, and she says the CDC tries especially to make sure parents stay on the infant immunization schedule to protect their children fully. Washington County Health is distributing informative posters about immunization with all daycares and health care providers in the county this week. The county also provides an immunization clinic five days a month in Washington and one day a month in Kalona.