Although measles was declared successfully eradicated in 2000, but the disease returned epidemic due to declining vaccination rates in some parts of the United States. The phenomenon of a decrease in the number of infants and children are vaccinated it is not just happening in the US, but also other countries, including Indonesia.
It should not happen like this, says infectious disease physician and researcher at the Mayo Clinic, Pritish Tosh. Actually this is a preventable disease.
According to Tosh, measles vaccine, mumps, and rubella vaccine is phenomenal because of its ability to protect a lot of people from the population. Measles vaccine is one of the many vaccines are given in several doses. Children receive their first MMR vaccine at age 12-15 months and the provision of a second at the age of 4-6 years.
Manufacture of a vaccine must take many variables into consideration, including pathogens (disease sources) the individual or disease, immune system responds, part of a pathogen could generate immunity that protects, as well as how long the response survive. Because it is very complex, sometimes takes a second or third dose of vaccine.
Sometimes the administration of the vaccine in large groups of the population, we expect the effect of protection from the disease to 90 percent. But with the second dose, the protection rose to 98 percent, he said.
Therefore, according to Tosh, from the get 10 percent of the population that has not been protected from the first dose, the best strategy is the administration of a second dose so that we get the maximum protection.
Children's immune system is not well developed to produce prolonged immune response needed in their lifetime. The vaccine must consider the appropriate time. That time is when the child actually produces protective immunity system, said Tosh.
However, in every age, the second vaccine will help increase protection.
The first time our bodies are exposed to pathogens, your body produces an immune response, he added. But when you are faced with same disease a few years later, your immune system will produce more specific responses and durable.
For example, the vaccine papilloma virus (HPV) to prevent cervical cancer consists of three doses. The second dose is given two months after the first dose and the third dose six months after the start. The vaccine is recommended given to girls and boys aged 11-12 years, up to age 26 years in women and 21 years in men.
Tosh said, giving the prescribed age was due to the expiration of the age of the protective effect of the vaccine was less than the maximum.
Even so, it does not mean that the new child gets one smallpox vaccine are not protected.
Some people may only with one dose of the immune system which can produce specific and long-lasting response. But mostly it took twice the vaccine, clearly Tosh.
Difficult to determine which ones require more than one time. So I suggest if people have not got the vaccine entirely, immediately get the dose that you need, he said.
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