You’re listening to WPSU’s Health Minute, a collaboration with Penn State’s College of Nursing.
The Covid-19 pandemic has dominated the news this year, but there are other diseases that can cause widespread illness too, like influenza, measles, and mumps.
Immunizations are the best tools modern medicine has to stop infectious diseases in their tracks.
Immunizations present the immune system with a sample protein from a virus or bacteria. If a person is later exposed to that disease, the immune system springs into action, rapidly manufactures the antibodies it has stored in memory, and destroys the foreign invader before the person can get sick.
For more information, contact your primary care provider or visit the CDC at cdc.gov/vaccines.
Join us next week for WPSU’s Health Minute.
For all of our episodes, visit wpsu.org/healthminute.
I’m Cheraine Stanford, WPSU.
