Vaccinations

Sarah and I had our last lot of jabs this week and my mind cast back to the presentation Dr Leo Cheng did at Eden in the summer. He said that he went to Africa feeling like Superman having had so many vaccinations. Here's what we're immune to now...

TB - BCGs for Tommy and Sarah when at school - Tom and Josh still to have theirs in the next few weeks
Hepatitis A + B - Sarah just needed a booster, Tommy had 4 injections while the poor boys needed 5!
Yellow Fever - Just a single injection each
Cholera - 2 drinks for Tommy and Sarah
Meningitus A,C,W+Y - 1 Jab for all (Josh will have his as a nice 2nd birthday present!)
Typhoid - Single jab each (Another present for Josh's birthday)
Flu - 1 jab, 2 for Joshua, none for Tom (getting a bit needle phobic now, as you can imagine)
Tetanus, Diptheria, Polio - 1 Booster for Sarah and Tommy
MMR - Booster for Sarah and Tommy
Pneumococcal - 1 for everyone

There are two points that I would like to raise about these vaccinations.

The first is to ask that you pray for Tom when he has his TB injection as he is beginning to react quite strongly when he knows he's having an injection and the BCG jab needs to be controlled and carefully placed otherwise he'll have to have it twice!

The second is to reiterate a point made by Leo in his talk. We are so lucky to have access to these jabs and between them they will protect us from one of the three big killers in West Africa. Thanks to the excellent provisions on the ship we will also be protected from Malnutrition and unclean water supply. It's sobering to think that this is not the case for the people we will be serving just the other side of the dock and in the near future these will still be the big three killers in West Africa and the reason around 1 in 5 babies born won't see their fifth birthday...