To Immunize or Not to Immunize Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

To Immunize or Not to Immunize - Essay Example Although it is unclear whether or not the potential for this particular strain to jump species and be exhibited within the human population is unclear, the extraordinarily high risk that this particular strain of avian flu poses encourages all individuals within society to appreciate the gravity of the situation and engage with a drastic and radical vaccination program as a means of ameliorating just such a risk. It should be reiterated at this particular juncture that even though the potential for this particular strain to jump species is unknown, the inherent risk that it represents is enough to warrant drastic action on the part of medical help professionals and government actors that would be able to make available the existing public funding that could help to provide enough vaccination doses to vaccinate the entire United States population. Besides the issue of cost, individuals that opposed such a vaccination program would invariably point to the fact that prior vaccination programs were able to effectively ameliorate potential damages to society merely by vaccinating the very young and very old (Ritvo et al., 2013). Although this particular approach has been effective with respect to H1N1 and other strains of avian flu in the past, such a limited approach does not come anywhere close to addressing the broad and categorical dangers that had been alluded to above; at least to the extent that the 100% mortality rate for birds could easily translate into an extraordinarily high mortality rate within humans. Ultimately, the issue at hand is one of risk. The risk of not inoculating the entire population is one that society can ill afford (Johnson et al., 2014). Additionally, even in the eventuality that a high percentage of individuals were inoculated, those that were not still incur high health care costs and place inordi nate strain upon the system as