Health Information ● Sokkiniakia’pi

Vaccines keep your child safe from serious diseases that can make them very sick, cause long-lasting problems, or even death. For example, Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib) can damage the brain or lead to death, polio can cause paralysis, and HPV can lead to cancer. Some diseases, like measles and tetanus, have no treatment or cure. Vaccines are the only protection against these diseases.

Immunizing your child doesn’t just protect them; it also helps protect the Blood Tribe community. This is because the more people in a community who are immunized, the harder it is for a disease to spread. This type of protection is called community immunity. Community immunity helps keep disease rates low and helps protect the most vulnerable among us, including babies, people with weakened immune systems, and Elders.

Vaccines are among the safest tools of modern medicine. All vaccines undergo in-depth testing and must be shown to be safe and effective before being approved in Canada. Even after a vaccine is approved, its safety continues to be monitored. Before vaccines were available, many Canadians suffered or died from diseases like polio, diphtheria, and Hib. Thanks to vaccines, many of these diseases are now rare in Canada.

Immunization is the best and safest way for your child to build immunity. If your child gained immunity by getting the disease, they would be at risk for severe illness and, in some cases, long-term disability and death. For example, meningococcal infection can cause deafness, loss of limbs, and brain damage, and chickenpox can cause pneumonia (infection in the lungs) and increases the risk of severe invasive group A streptococcal infection.

Vaccines have reduced or even eliminated many diseases that killed or seriously harmed people just a few generations ago. For example, smallpox no longer exists worldwide because of immunization. If we keep immunizing, we may not need to worry about other diseases, like measles or polio, in the future.