Pediatrician Dr. Enisa Mulalic talked about the importance of immunization, and noted that children in the 21st century must not suffer from illnesses from the 19th century.
The topic of possible outbreak of measles in Sarajevo is current in the last few days, and this disease became present in the form of epidemics in the region and some other parts of Europe.
“This is a severe disease against which we are vaccinating our children since 1970’s,” said Dr. Mulalic. “This disease was more common in densely populated areas. There were some cases of death before the use of vaccines, but the humanity is fighting this disease in the 20th century,” said Dr. Mulalic.
“Vaccines protect the collective immunity, and vaccinated children protect the unvaccinated ones. There is no vaccine that can protect with 100 % certainty, but they do protect 95 %,” she said.
“I responsibly claim, we vaccinate thousands of children every year. I have never had a case that someone felt some damage or died because of vaccines,” said Dr. Enisa Mulalic.
“The entire vaccination program is under the supervision of the World Health Organization. They stay behind it. Every vaccine has to pass through the State Agency for Medicines. There are experts, technicians, who complete that part of work. The vaccine comes to BiH tested, we keep it in the cold chain. The vaccines are safe,” claimed Dr. Mulalic.
She also noted that there are children who cannot be vaccinated due to medical reasons, i.e. certain illness – but these are very rare cases, and the vaccination is only delayed.
“We set contraindications, not parents. If collective immunity is on the high level, 95 %, then those 5 % of children that cannot be vaccinated are protected,” she said. “There are almost no side effects. The vaccines are better and better,” said Dr. Mulalic and added that in medicine, the benefit always has to be greater than the damage.
(Source: N1)
