Vaccines are incredibly important not only here in the United States but all throughout the world as well. Though vaccines of course need to be more accessible all throughout the world, with nearly twenty five million people not getting the necessary vaccinations by the time that they reach one year of age, vaccines have already saved many lives. As many as nearly two and a half million lives will be saved each and every year, all thanks to the growing use of vaccinations all around the world.
This can be seen in a number of different ways and surrounding a number of different diseases. For one, the disease of polio, though it has been almost wholly eradicated in the United States, is still prevalent in other parts of the world. It was once a major threat here in the United States as well, but thanks to more than ninety three percent of toddler getting the polio vaccine, it no longer poses the threat it once did. Gone are the days where parents fear their children ending up disabled, in an iron lung for life, or even dying from polio and as the vaccine for polio continues to spread throughout the world, the risk that polio presents will continue to fall.
The measles present another case in which vaccinations have saved a considerable number of lives. And though many of us might consider the measles to be an outdated and phased out disease, the measles are closer to us in history than we might realize. In fact, the number of measles deaths in the year of 2000 totaled more than five hundred thousand people. But thanks to the widespread use of vaccinations of measles here in the United States, that number had dropped below one hundred and fifty thousand measles deaths by the time that we had reached the year of 2014. This marks a drop of more than seventy five percent in measles deaths (seventy nine percent, to be more exact).
Perhaps we can see the importance of vaccines most clearly of all when it comes to the flu. The flu is a common disease, one that can infect up to twenty percent of the population in any given year during the flu season. While the flu is common, it can be far more severe than many people realize, and because of this far too many people don’t get vaccinated. But in the less than ten years since the year of 2010, more than seven hundred thousand people have been hospitalized for complications related to the flu. And for more than fifty five thousand people, the flu actually led to death.
While the flu is most dangerous for specific groups of people, from the very young to the very old to those who have compromised immune systems, certain strains of the flu can still prove to be dangerous to the general public. And while it is true that the flu vaccine does not provide one hundred percent protection, it can drastically lower your chances of getting sick. Even if you do get the flu, having have had the vaccine can lower the risk of having complications from the flu and can even hasten your recovery from it.
Storing vaccines is absolutely essential to ensuring that they can be widely distributed. They must be stored in the correct place, from the pharmacy grade refrigerator to the medical freezer. The pharmacy grade refrigerator is commonly found throughout the pharmacies of the United States, but the pharmacy grade refrigerator can easily be switched out for a scientific refrigerator or a scientific freezer. A pharmacy grade refrigerator needs to be kept at a very specific temperature or rather the typical pharmacy grade refrigerator must be kept within a specific range of temperatures. Most ideally, however, the pharmacy grade refrigerator will be kept at a cool temperature of forty degrees Fahrenheit (which translates to five degrees Celsius).
Here in the United States and all around the world, vaccine storage matters. The vaccine freezer can help prevent the long lasting complications of disease and even death for many.
