World Immunisation Week, a campaign by the World Health Organisation (WHO), is being celebrated from April 24th-30th 2014. The campaign’s stated aim is to promote what WHO describes as one of the world’s most powerful tools for health – the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease.
Vaccination prevents between 2 and 3 million human deaths every year and now protects children not only against diseases for which vaccines have been available for many years, such as diphtheria, tetanus, polio and measles, but also against diseases such as pneumonia and rotavirus diarrhoea, two of the biggest killers of children under 5.
Furthermore, adolescents and adults can now be protected against life-threatening diseases such as influenza, meningitis, and cancers (cervical and liver cancers), thanks to new and sophisticated vaccines.
Despite this success, 1 in 5 children are still missing out, so the WHO’s theme for 2014 is “Are you up-to-date?”.
This campaign resonates for our pet population too.
Pet charity PDSA has reported that more than 11 million pets could die prematurely in the next decade from devastating preventable illnesses such as parvovirus, feline influenza and feline leukaemia because their owners are failing to vaccinate them, from diseases such as some cancers if they fail to get them neutered or spayed.
Their research, conducted through YouGov, showed that nearly half of UK cats, dogs and rabbits do not receive basic preventive care such as vaccinations and neutering – vital in safe-guarding their long-term health and welfare.
The PDSA’s Animal Wellbeing (PAW) Report showed that around 4 million dogs are not vaccinated or neutered. These unvaccinated dogs risk contracting diseases such as parvovirus – a severe viral illness which commonly leads to vomiting, diarrhoea, septicaemia and eventually death.
The report also says there are up to 5.7 million unvaccinated cats in the UK that could succumb to diseases like feline leukaemia, which can overwhelm a cat’s immune system.
Nearly half the UK’s rabbit population (800,000 out of 1.7 million) have never been vaccinated, leaving them exposed to serious diseases like myxomatosis and rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD).
Yet these are the same pets that research carried out by the National Office of Animal Health (NOAH) says we talk to, sing to and dance with – that 33% of owners would sleep next to if they were ill, and 40% would risk their own lives to save.
NOAH agrees with PDSA Senior Vet Sean Wensley that ‘Love by itself is not enough’, and has produced a special infographic, available as a poster free of charge.
“Perhaps to some extent vaccination of our pets has been a victim of its own success, with many owners not seeing the infectious diseases that vaccines prevent in their pets or the pets of their friends,” comments NOAH technical executive and veterinary surgeon Donal Murphy.
“Yet once the level of vaccination in the population drops, the disease incidence starts to rise.
Killer diseases have not gone away. They have only been kept in check by responsible pet owners who maintain their animal’s vaccination programmes.
The cat belonging to the new family in the street, or the stray dog in the park, may be harbouring disease, which can attack when a pet is not fully protected. Unvaccinated pets are vulnerable to devastating – and sometimes incurable – disease,” he says. “Talk to your vet to ensure your pet is safe.”