Why vaccinate if I’m healthy?

A healthy life should be lived fully and uninhibited by the long-term effects of serious illnesses. Here’s how you can stay on top of your healthy lifestyle with the support of vaccines.

It’s naïve to think that being healthy keeps us completely free of the risk of certain contagious diseases. Even healthy people face the risk of catching and spreading such diseases to other healthy people1.

Although eating healthy food, getting a good night’s sleep and keeping physically active, helps benefit and strengthen your immune system, these habits can’t provide you with the level of immunity that vaccines do against certain infectious diseases1-3.

Healthy people are still exposed to serious vaccine-preventable infectious diseases, and this becomes a bigger issue when babies, the elderly and those with weakened or compromised immune systems are near an infected person4,5.

Habits like handwashing and cough etiquette can help limit the spread of some infectious diseases – however, they are not as effective as vaccines5,6.

Staying up to date with your routine vaccinations, as well as additional boosters in some cases, helps our bodies maintain immunity against various infectious diseases, as some vaccines are designed to prevent disease, rather than treat them4,7.

Vaccines can help protect you from the complications, or even subsequent illnesses that some infectious diseases may bring4.

In South Africa, routine vaccinations from pregnancy, through to early adolescence, are provided free of charge at public clinics8. From January 2024, public clinics started following the updated Expanded Programme on Immunisation in South Africa (EPI-SA) Schedule9.

For more information on vaccines and what routine vaccinations you or your loved ones may need, contact your Health Care Provider.

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References:

  1. Vaccine Knowledge Project. FAQs about vaccines; [updated January 19, 2022]. Available from: https://vaccineknowledge.ox.ac.uk/faqs-about-vaccines#Weighing-up-the-risks. Accessed April 2024.
  2. Harvard Health Publishing: Harvard Medical School. Crucial ways you can support a healthy immune system (March 29, 2023). Available from: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/crucial-ways-you-can-support-a-healthy-immune-system. Accessed April 2024.
  3. Harvard Health Publishing: Harvard Medical School. Can supplements help boost your immune system?; (January 1 2020) Available from: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/can-supplements-help-boost-your-immune-system. Accessed April 2024.
  4. CDC. 5 Reasons It Is Important for Adults to Get Vaccinated. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/adults/reasons-to-vaccinate.html#print  Accessed April 2024.
  5. Immunize for good. Aurora (CO): Colorado Children's Immunization Coalition; c2010 – 2020. Natural immunity. Available from: http://www.immunizeforgood.com/fact-or-fiction/natural-immunity Accessed April 2024.
  6. CDC. Preventive Actions to Help Protect Against Flu. Available from:  https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/actions-prevent-flu.htm Accessed April 2024.
  7. European Vaccination Information portal. Benefits of vaccination. Available from: https://vaccination-info.europa.eu/en/about-vaccines/benefits-vaccination Accessed April 2024.
  8. Department of Health (DoH) Western Cape Government. For You. Immunization. Available from: https://www.westerncape.gov.za/service/immunisation  Accessed April 2024.
  9. Department of Health (DoH), South Africa. Expanded Programme on Immunisation – EPI (SA) Revised Immunisation Schedule from January 2024.

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