The Ekurhuleni metro is calling all parents to help the metro grow its future leaders by ensuring their children are immunised.
Health practitioners have observed an alarming trend of parents missing their children’s immunisation appointments, while some lose the immunisation cards, commonly known as the road to health card.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), immunisation prevents deaths ranging from two million to three million each year.
The metro reiterates that every day is an immunisation day and every child must be vaccinated according to the immunisation schedule.
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Sr Tembi Mahlangu, manager for nursing services at Brackenhurst Clinic in Alberton, said:“It is important to get your little ones protected from vaccine-preventable diseases, and the first step towards ensuring that is through vaccination. It doesn’t matter whether you lost the road to health card or missed the scheduled date, ultimately a child must be immunised.
“Children need all the required vaccinations at the right time during their developmental stages, skipping a stage poses a threat to a child’s development, making them prone to vaccine-preventable diseases,” she said.
Vaccines stimulate the body’s immune system, which helps to prevent and protect children from serious illnesses, such as polio, hepatitis, measles, meningitis, diphtheria, pneumonia and other life-threatening illnesses, that affect children as they grow.
Another important factor raised by health practitioners is that parents of schoolgoing children tend to forget that their children need to be immunised when they are six and 12 years old for the compulsory TD (tetanus and diphtheria) vaccination.
The human papillomavirus vaccination (HPV) received by Grade Eight schoolchildren helps to prevent cervical cancer in girls and reduces the risk of contracting viral infections that affect both girls and boys in lower body areas such as genital wards and reduces risk of anal cancer.
The vaccine is given by the school health nurses.
Parents and guardians may visit Ekurhuleni health facilities from Monday to Friday from 8am until 4pm.
The metro also offers extended operating hours in selected health facilities to accommodate parents who cannot make it during weekdays.
Facilities rendering extended-hour services are Daveyton Main Community Day Centre in Daveyton and Phillip Moyo Community Health Centre in Etwatwa.
Every day is an immunisation day, no child should be turned away from any health facility without being assisted.
