To the Editor,
As our adolescents prepare to return to school, it’s important that we remember that while buying new backpacks and school supplies, signing up for sports and after school activities, we also need to make sure our kids’ immunizations are current.
So often we feel that something could never happen to us or our family. But some illnesses like influenza, the reality is quite different. Last flu season, nearly 400 Carolinians died from the illness. Nationwide, among children who died from flu, the large majority had not received a flu vaccine.
Vaccines are critical for protecting our teens from serious and sometimes deadly diseases.
North Carolina has seen its share of even rarer diseases that have had epidemic waves in our schools. Pertussis — commonly known as whooping cough — has had several outbreaks in North Carolina schools over the last five years. Its potency can also have deadly effects, especially for babies too young to be immunized who are exposed to whooping cough.
The NC Academy of Family Physicians is proud to partner with the NC Department of Health and Human Services and the NC Pediatric Society to support Adolescent Immunization Month. So as you get your adolescents ready to return to school, take a moment to talk with your teen’s primary care physician. Keeping your child vaccinated could very well save their life.
Dr. Tamieka Howell
President
NC Academy of Family Physicians (Family Physician, Greensboro, NC)
Dr. Scott St. Clair
President
NC Pediatric Society
CONTACT:
Gregory K. Griggs, MPA, CAE
Executive Vice President, North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians
Phone: 919-833-2110
Mobile: 919-417-6692
Fax: 919-833-1801
E-mail: ggriggs@ncafp.com
ADDRESS:
2501 Blue Ridge Road
Suite 120