COVID-19 vaccine UAE: What parents need to know about childhood vaccines

COVID-19 vaccine UAE: What parents need to know about childhood vaccines

If there's one thing that the pandemic has taught us, it's the vital importance of vaccines. We've all witnessed first-hand the chaos that ensues when a virus is able to spread unbridled throughout the community, before modern medicine has had a chance to catch up. Throughout all the horror, our hopes have continually rested on the possibility of an effective COVID-19 vaccine. Now that it is finally a reality for adults, parents across the world are clamouring to enrol their kids in the first COVID-19 vaccine trials in young children, so that they may also be protected. And yet there are sections of society who remain hesitant about vaccines in general and reluctant to immunise their children against any diseases at all - something that can put all of us at risk, says Dr Bariah Dardari, Consultant Pediatrician at Fakeeh University Hospital. "It's crucial to have a trusted relationship between parents and their pediatrician to help guide them through the barrage of vaccine misinformation," says Dr Dardari. "Reminding modern society of the devastating alternative of not vaccinating our children, in which we see the re-emerging of vaccine-preventable disease, also plays an important role." This World Immunization Week, we look at