Vaccinations are a hot topic, and there are many people that are jumping onto the bandwagon that they are not good for you. Well, the numbers don’t lie. If you do not vaccinate your child, you are putting them at risk, as well as putting other children at risk. Measles, which had pretty much disappeared from what it used to be, is now coming back with a vengeance. People are dying, 57 in the last 2 years according to the CDC. This is not a personal feel-good choice, this is a serious problem. And not just measles, there are a lot of other preventable diseases that are starting to come back. Measles are just one disease, but one we need to make go away. In Europe, we are starting to get a record-breaking numbers of cases according to the world health organization. There have been nearly 15,000 cases across Europe, with about a third of those in Romania, which has the least vaccinations. What can you do to help?

Get vaccinated

You can see that the majority of the cases when we had increases in the USA was during the anti-vaccination phase people went through, though it seems to be better now with less than 100 cases. However, the countries with the least vaccinations are having the highest outbreaks. The USA has done a great job with vaccinations, and you can see the effect compared to the parts of Europe that are having the outbreaks. Unfortunately, people still visit the USA in droves and bring those measles with them.

Check your medical history

Check with your doctor if you have had measles in the past, once you have had them, you are pretty much safe from them again. If you have never had them, check if you have been vaccinated for them. If you have neither, then it is a good idea to get vaccinated and remove one more person from the problem.

Get vaccinated

Did we already say get vaccinated? We can’t emphasize this enough, so we stuck it in here 2 times to make our point. For people that are worried about vaccinations, we encourage you to research them or read up on them to understand what they are. There are many lifesaving vaccinations, and it would be a shame to drown from being scared of a life preserver in the water.

Keep away from anyone that has it

Measles are highly contagious. If anyone has it, get your distance. Unless you know for sure that you have had it before or have been vaccinated. If someone sends a child to school with measles, they need to be talked to for idiocy, and you should pull your child out of school for a few days. Unless you are sure he has been vaccinated.

Wash your hands

Simple soap and water will stop a lot of viruses from spreading. Touching things is a wonderful vector to move viruses from one place to another. So wash with simple soap and water. Explain this to your child as well, as all you need is one sick child to spread whatever viruses to all their houses and friends. Your child doesn’t want to get sick any more than you do. Even if they are vaccinated, they need to know to wash their hands, as they could transmit it to others that might be susceptible. The same goes for sharing utensils and anything else, just use logic.

See your doctor

If you or your child gets measles, take them to your doctor and have yourself checked while you are there. Your doctor will educate you on what you can do and how to deal with it, as well as how long it will last. They can give you medicines that will help.  Measles are a highly contagious virus. Even as an adult you can get a vaccination with an MMR vaccine. (Mumps, Measles, Rubella). It has nearly 100% effectiveness in stopping the disease. We all need to help each other to work to get rid of these viruses again.

We are sorry if we seem too intense on this, but we know our history and have lived through epidemics. Just to give you an idea of how serious things can be, the flu killed more than 100 million people before we started vaccinating. The flu still kills about half a million people a year, and averages about 50,000 deaths in the USA alone. So highly infectious viruses like measles need to be dealt with and taken care of before they turn into an epidemic as well. Ok, that was a little bit of fear-mongering, but really, sometimes you have to do that to get people to pay attention. Get vaccinated.