‘Vaccines Do Not Save Lives: Vaccinations Save Lives’
Dr B. J. C. Perera
MBBS (Cey), DCH(Cey), DCH(Eng), MD(Paed), MRCP(UK), FRCP(Edin), FRCP(Lon), FRCPCH(UK), FSLCPaed, FCCP, Hony FRCPCH(UK), Hony. FCGP(SL)
Specialist Consultant Paediatrician
Please allow me to start with a bombshell. Long years ago, as a very young Medical Student, I absolutely hated paediatrics. Of course, it was not a matter of hating children; I loved and adored them, including a whole lot of my nephews and nieces. What I hated was just the subject of Paediatrics which dealt with caring for sick children. I was most definitely convinced that it was the very last thing that I would want to choose as a professional career.
The real reason for my intense dislike of Paediatrics was the heart-breaking spectacle of the number of children who died and were sometimes even maimed for life by certain diseases. As a young Medical Student of around 20 years of age, this writer was horrified by the number of bodies of innocent children being wheeled out of the Wards of The Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, an institution where he was schooled in the many aspects of Paediatric Healthcare. That was an initiation into Paediatrics by a veritable baptism by fire.
What killed and maimed those children was a plethora of infectious diseases. You name it, we had it in Ceylon, as our Motherland was then known. The killers were Tuberculosis, Tetanus, Diphtheria, Polio, Whooping Cough, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Bacterial Meningitis, Japanese Encephalitis, Viral Hepatitis, Bacterial pneumonia etc; just to mention a few. In the latter part of the 1960s, the under-5-year mortality rate was around 80 per 1,000 live births. In technical terminology, it implies that out of 1,000 babies born during that period, 80 did not live up to the age of 5 years. It was one of the highest rates in the world.
Then when I qualified as a doctor in 1970, through many a force of circumstances, destiny compelled me to work as an Intern Medical Officer in Paediatrics for six months and then as a Medical Officer in the Out Patient Department (OPD) of the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children for one year. It meant that I was exposed to pure paediatrics for one and a half years, totally on the trot.
That is where I realised a home truth. True enough some children died, but Paediatric Healthcare also saved a whole lot of even very sick children and gave back to society humans who would live for another 60 to 70 years as citizens of our Motherland. It quite forcefully induced me to take an about turn, a paradigm swing of 180 degrees, into a professional career in Paediatrics. The rest of course, as many would say, is history.
Fast forward 50 years or so to the present time. Our under-5-year mortality rate in 2022 was under 7 per 1,000 live births; yes, down to single digits. Now then, please mark my words, a reduction of this rate from 80 in the 1960s to under 7 in 2022 is just what dreams are made of. It is almost too good to be true but in stark reality, it is God’s own truth. We have achieved the impossible, and on that score, we have even raced ahead of many countries in our region of the world.
Remember the list of killers that I gave earlier on in this article? More than NINETY FIVE PER CENT of them are not there anymore in Sri Lanka. Among many other things, that by itself is the main reason that we have managed to achieve the impossible. Many of those young child killers have been totally banished from our shores. As just a shining example, the last time we saw a confirmed case of polio was in November 1993., yes, three decades ago. As a Medical Student and as a young junior doctor, this author has seen three epidemics of polio which killed and maimed for life, scores of children including infants.
How we have dealt lethal blows to these killers is through the use of vaccines that protect our children from these infective assassins. The Sri Lankan Ministry of Health Expanded Programme of Immunisation (EPI) has been held up as a beacon of excellence even in the developed world. Our country boasts of over 95 per cent, perhaps around even 99 per cent, coverage of all children against these killer diseases through the EPI. We have seen parents queuing up for hours to get their children vaccinated. They have made it one of their sacred duties to attend to all vaccinations of their children. This author has seen the parents braving even the vile orders of an insurgent group in 1988/1989 civil disturbances in Kurunegala to bring their children in droves from far and wide to our Immunisation Clinic, to get them vaccinated at the right times. The only functioning vaccination clinic for the entire region was our one in General Hospital, Kurunegala. There were hundreds of children being brought. We did not disappoint a single one of those parents. We vaccinated the entire lot. I felt that we owe it to them for their resilience.
It has been said that vaccines save lives. However, the title of this article “Vaccines do not save lives: Vaccinations save lives” is taken from a scholarly article written by an erudite academic Walter Orenstein, published in the prestigious journal Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics, in 2019. It implies that it does not matter whether we have loads of vaccines against even as many bugs as possible but if the vaccines are not administered then the vaccines cannot save lives.
Now, I come to the real crux of this article of mine. Just a few days ago, there was a media frenzy about a four-month-old baby who died a day after her vaccination. As has been rightly pointed out by the authorities, there is no scientific evidence, sans any doubt whatsoever, to link the death directly to the vaccine.
However, as has been ever so succinctly pointed out by the editorial in The Island Newspaper on 19th July 2023, “This, we believe, is a timely warning, which must not go unheeded, for there occur certain situations where logical reasoning and sound judgement desert most Sri Lankans, who have also earned notoriety for mass hysteria, which leads to irrational behaviour. In spite of its admirably high literacy rate, Sri Lanka is no stranger to groupthink, frequent breakdowns of critical thinking and the people’s strong reliance on social dynamics, shared beliefs, etc., disseminated via social media.”
The real worry for us who care for the health needs of children is the potential aftermath of all this adverse publicity, on our National Immunisation Programme. This is especially so, in the light of many allegations being made on the deaths caused by the administration of reportedly sub-standard drugs that have been imported into the country by our Ministry of Health. Woe be unto it, there is a real possibility of a blanket avoidance of all vaccines that are given to children.
This is a fervent plea to all parents. Please do not jeopardise the future of the children of our land by responding to unfounded allegations and by being hesitant to vaccinate children. I do not think that very many have seen the unbelievable misery that was caused by these infectious diseases that this author has had the misfortune to witness. I would give anything in the world to prevent our getting back into that abyss of despair which was the norm five to six decades ago.
All of us owe it to our nation to ensure that the highest coverage of all EPI vaccines is maintained at present as well as into the future too. Such an investment in health is the least that we owe ourselves, as a nation.
