Vaccination is the act of receiving medication, known as a vaccine, that helps the body system to fight diseases and stay healthy. Vaccines are more like public medications that are administered to different types of people at the appropriate time(whenever there is a need) and age. Vaccines can either come in tablet or syrup form, and sometimes, they are also administered through injections.
Growing up in primary and secondary school, we were taught many important things about vaccination, which made me believe that it is very important, even though I have not seen anyone who suffered from refusing to take vaccines. However, news and stories say that refusal to take vaccines can do harm to the body.
Vaccines, as I have learned, help the body system to fight diseases and completely eliminate the symptoms. They help keep the body in a condition where it becomes immune to diseases, which in turn helps to eliminate deadly diseases from society, the country, or even the world at large. Vaccines also help to keep infants, who are very prone to diseases, healthy and able to resist common illnesses that are known to affect children. We were told, in particular, that any child who did not receive vaccines in infancy stands a chance of facing serious health issues when they grow up. I do not know how true this is.
In my country, the government overseeing the health sector has been very serious about the issue of vaccination because even to this day, I still see medical personnel moving around to vaccinate children. This vaccination is not only done in the cities; it is also carried out in rural areas, even in places that are normally not easily accessible. That shows how important the act is.
Also, I have not really heard of people refusing to be vaccinated. Even children who are scared of injections are forced by their parents or by the teachers in the schools where the vaccination is being carried out. These days, these medical personnel will come to our school and those people who are scared of injections, the teachers would hold them while they receive the injection(vaccine) by force.
The only vaccination I know that many people refused to partake in was the COVID-19 vaccination because it came with a lot of scary rumors, which frightened people and made them avoid taking the vaccine. It was not just mere speculations—we saw people who fell sick after taking the vaccine, and you can imagine how concerning that was.
I did not take the COVID-19 vaccine up till today because, over time, we no longer saw any reason to take it. It was said that the virus was never as serious or widespread in Nigeria as it was publicized. At that time, figures kept increasing, fake news was everywhere, and the government was believed to be taking advantage of the whole situation. If the superstitions behind the news were what made us avoid taking the vaccine, then that was really serious.
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