Vaccines save lives ... and made me see things

Rym Ghazal on why vaccines are important for every individual

Inventor of vaccinations Edward Jenner (1749-1823) vaccinates his son. Hulton Archive / Getty Images

In 1796, Edward Jenner administered the first vaccination as a treatment for smallpox, a deadly disease that had killed millions. This procedure eventually led to many new vaccinations for polio, whooping cough, measles, tetanus, yellow fever, typhus, hepatitis and flu.

So, the process of vaccination is centuries old, yet it remains a highly debated topic. In the West, some families have stopped vaccinating their children – and it is a debating point in the Middle East as well. Recently, two new mothers became engrossed in a heated discussion over whether to vaccinate, with each mentioning cases of people with experiences that strengthened their side of the debate.

There is, for instance, the argument that vaccination is linked to autism. Just try an online search and you will see numerous studies, blogs, court rulings and evidence on both sides of this argument. Many refer to a 1997 study published by Andrew Wakefield, a British surgeon, in The Lancet suggesting that the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine was increasing autism in British children. It has since been discredited.

Just how serious not vaccinating can be lies in an example in California in 2010, when there were 9,120 cases of whooping cough, more than any year since the whooping cough vaccine was introduced in the 1940s.

In the end, it really stresses out some parents as they are unsure what to do given all this contradictory information.

I can only speak for myself and what I have witnessed. I have two friends afflicted by polio because their parents did not vaccinate. They can never walk properly. One is in her 30s, and the other is in his 40s. While they both have accepted their fate, they do wonder what would have happened if their parents had taken them to the doctor before it was too late.

When I was 6 years old, I had a reaction to a vaccine given to me in my leg, an error by a nurse at a clinic in Madina. I couldn’t walk for two weeks. You can imagine how distressed my family became, but thankfully all was fine in the end. So mistakes can happen.

I also had mumps, although I was too young to remember anything beyond something strange and huge around my neck. Apparently I was due for my second vaccine dose and it was caught right before. I would come out from my house and both children and adults would run away from me, scared to catch it. A very unpleasant experience for anyone, especially a child.

Sometimes, you have no choice but to get vaccinated if say, you want to do a pilgrimage, like Haj. The Saudi government requires the Meningococcal Vaccine (Quadruple), to protect against meningitis. When I was at school we would be reminded to get it even if we were not going for Haj given that Jeddah was a stop over for pilgrims. Also if you are going for Haj you need a Pneumococcal Vaccine and sometimes one for flu, depending on which epidemic may be in season.

With Haj fast approaching this September, tens of thousands of pilgrims will be heading to clinics to update their vaccination booklets. Thank goodness for such precautions, because despite the fact I had vaccinated myself against so many illnesses when I covered Haj in 2008, I still caught what the Saudi doctor called “the African fever”.

My fevers were so high, I was delusional. I saw a baseball-like object flying over me. Laughable now, but because there is no vaccination against this particular illness which is not exactly identified, there is always a risk of it happening.

So a vaccine can save your life, and sometimes, it can give you side effects. Like everything in life, there are always risks, and all you can do is hope for the best.

Twitter:@Arabianmau