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Government should implement mandatory vaccination for communicable diseases
Vaccination is considered by medical practitioners and researchers as one of the greatest achievement in the modern civilization. A study conducted by Balding (14) concluded common diseases for children which were highly available have been rare because of vaccination. Vaccination has reduced the rate at which communicable diseases spread among children worldwide. Reiss and Weithorn ( 21) pointed out that mandatory vaccination started in the early days across the United States. In almost 50 states, it is a mandatory requirement for children their vaccination card upon admission. This makes it mandatory for children to be vaccinated before being admitted to school. However, the recent outbreak of measles in the United States is the highest in history since the country made a declaration that it has been eliminated in the year 2000. Researchers from Centre for Disease Control (CDC) have pointed that the increase of cases of measles and other communicable diseases is due to people not getting vaccinated. Vaccination is the best and most effective public health intervention applied worldwide for saving life and promoting good life. According to CITATION Ben06 \p 21 \l 1033 (Balding 21), despite the importance of vaccination, the uptake of vaccination has severely reduced in the several countries due to cultural, religion and even some misguide concerns regarding the safety of vaccination. Though there are misguided concerns regarding vaccination, vaccination should be mandatory to help prevent the spread of communicable diseases, and provide safety and healthy society.
Vaccination should be made mandatory to all children to prevent the resurgence of infection diseases in the society. A study conducted by Bozzola, Spina and Russo (21) concluded that several cases of resurgence of communicable diseases occur in places where vaccination has been abolished. For instance, the outbreak of April 2019 measles in Texas affected mostly districts where vaccination had been limited years back. Some of these regions have strong religious beliefs and conservatives and therefore, parents have misguided concerns regarding vaccination. This caused a serious decline of vaccination making thousands of children to miss vaccination yearly. It made children venerable to infection by measles which caused the death of several children. Though measles had already been declared no existed in the United States, states where it has never been practiced like Texas and others are more likely to be affected by measles outbreak. Bozzola, Spina and Russo (14) stated that vaccination help in the prevention of diseases and therefore, children who vaccinated are less likely to get communicable diseases compared to the rest of children who have never been vaccinated.
The high rates of vaccination during the childhood are important to help in the prevention of infection diseases which contributes to the decline of mortality and mobility in the society. It is therefore, evident that vaccination is one of the importance tools used in primary prevention of communicable diseases. Therefore, enforcing mandatory vaccination is some of the strategies used by some countries and others are also considering adopting the same method. The policies of mandatory vaccination have also been controversial and normally receive opposition from various groups. Vaccination helps in solving the problems related to communicable diseases. According to Westphalen (23), children who were vaccinated can rarely get diseases like measles and other communicable diseases. A survey indicated that 90% of children affected by measles in April 2019 in the United States have never been vaccinated. It is therefore, evident vaccination is a key factor for the prevention of diseases. In A study published in Eurosurveillance, a journal of the European Center for Disease and Prevention, French researchers stated that vaccination rate highly increased in 2018, when comparison is done with older children CITATION Den18 \p 25 \l 1033 (Westphalen 25). Therefore, it is the reason for increased safety and health of children in Europe. Westphalen (15) farther pointed that it has been years since the last outbreak of communicable diseases in Europe and this could be as a result of mandatory vaccination policy being applied in all European countries.
The government of the United State should ensure that mandatory vaccination of children is enacted in all states across the country. Studies have proved that nations with mandatory vaccination rarely experience outbreak of communicable diseases therefore, the United States, should imitate the policies and ensure that children are well protected through mandatory vaccination policy. Making vaccination against communicable diseases should therefore, be made mandatory in the United States. A study conducted by Petterson (21) to investigate the spread of measles in the early 1960s before measles vaccination was introduce shows that in 1963 before the vaccination was introduced the spread of measles were high the rate of measles attack to children. Since the introduction of vaccine for measles the rate of measles spread in the United States has drastically reduced compared to the previous years. It is also concluded that majority of children who develop symptoms of other diseases have never been faced communicable diseases, It is therefore, evident that vaccination of patients if the best strategies which can be used to prevent the existence of communicable diseases. Mandatory vaccination therefore, is the best strategies which should be used by nursing practitioners and other medical professions to prevent the spread of communicable diseases in the society.
Though several researchers support the idea of mandatory vaccination, there some people who feel vaccination should be option. According to Janko (12), mandatory vaccination violates the right and freedom of people and therefore, it should be avoided. It is pointed that people should have the right to make their own choices and mandatory vaccination violates the principle and the right of people and therefore, it cannot be allowed to continue being used in the United States. Therefore, vaccination should be left option and parents should have choice to vaccinate or not. Vaccination should also not be a mandatory because some of the misguided concerns which have never been addressed. It is argued that vaccination is not safe and therefore, children who are vaccinated have high chances of getting other diseases. A study conducted by Rogers (21) illustrated that some parents have concerns with vaccination because of substance which are being injected directly into the blood stream of children. It is argued that medical practitioners and other rogue organizations get opportunity to infect children further through vaccination which have caused a great risk to many children in some countries like South Africa. In South Africa and other countries from Sub – Sahara Africa therefore, have been allegation of infection being directly injected into the blood stream of children through vaccination.
It is also unethical and illegal to force parents to vaccinate their children against their will. The cultural and religion belief of people are core factor in building a better society. According to Rogers (25), it is important for the government and other stakeholders to respect cultural and religion belief of people and therefore, nobody should be forced against his or her belief to vaccinate his or her children. Mandatory vaccination takes the responsibilities away from parents to make choices on behalf of their children. Rogers (23) pointed that this is illegal and therefore, the government should not assume the responsibility to make decision on behalf of parents and therefore, vaccination should not be mandatory for all children. Parents should have an opportunity to make a choice whether to vaccinate their children or not. Therefore, vaccination should not be mandatory and nobody should be forced to vaccinate his or her child without taking into consideration and the right and freedom of an individual.
Though some people are opposed to mandatory vaccination by the government, it is the best concept which the government should deploy for the benefit of the future generation. A study has established that mandatory vaccination prevent the resurgence and keep children safe and in good health. It would be recommended for the government to have effective policy to implement mandatory vaccination throughout the country in all school and other places of gathering. Though in almost 50 states, children are required to get vaccinated before being admitted to school, this could not be enough way to implement the policy. The government should use collaborative and partnership approach to address some of the misguided concerns including religious and cultural beliefs which still hindered vaccination. The government should therefore, collaborate with churches, local community centers and other organized groups to provide teachings regarding vaccination so that a community can understand its importance and adopt the idea of vaccination. This is likely to increase the number of children getting vaccinated and therefore, the prevention of communicable diseases would high and achieved by the government. It is important to make vaccination a mandatory practice to all children to prevent the resurgence of infection diseases in the society. A study conducted by Bozzola, Spina and Russo (21) concluded that several cases of resurgence of communicable diseases occur in places where vaccination has been abolished. It would be the best technique to address the problem of break out of diseases and it would help in avoiding the breakout of measles in the near future.
Works Cited
BIBLIOGRAPHY Balding, Ben. "Mandatory Vaccination: Why We Still Got To Get Folks To Take Their Shots."
LEDA At Harvard Law School (2006): 2-15.
Bozzola, Elena, et al. "Mandatory vaccinations in European countries, undocumented
information, false news and the impact on vaccination uptake: the position of the Italian pediatric society." Italian Journal of Pediatricsvolume (2018): 2-35.
Janko, Matthew. "Vaccination: A Victim of Its Own Success." AMA Journal of ethics (2018): 2-
15.
Petterson, Richard. "Legal approaches to promoting parental compliance with childhood
immunization recommendations." Journal of Nursing and Science (2014): 2-15.
Reiss, Dorit Rubinstein and Lois A. Weithorn. "Legal approaches to promoting parental
compliance with childhood immunization recommendations." Journal of Human Vaccin Immunother. (2018): 2-18.
Rogers, Caroline. "Caroline Rogers." http://nuffieldbioethics.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/07/Public-health-ethical-issues.pdf (2015): 2-14.
Westphalen, Dena. "Should Childhood Vaccines Become Mandatory in the US?"
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/should-childhood-vaccines-become-mandatory-in-the-us#What-the-report-showed-about-vaccination-rates- (2018): 2-34.
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