Polio break out and vaccination

Vaccinations after chemotherapy, what is needed and what is not?

So, if you had a bone marrow transplant done all the vaccinations you have done are lost. These are the vaccinations that are needed to be taken.

During August polio was being found at a seawage treatment plant out in the Negev desert, in the southern part of Israel. The World Health  Organization,  sent three experts here to learn how the virus  – which apparently arrived from Egypt or elsewhere in Africa – got into the  sewage; the foreign experts worried that it could spread  elsewhere.

The Health Ministry then launched a month long “Two Drop” campaign of  attenuated oral polio vaccine (OPV) for children from four months old through  9.5 years, especially in the southern parts of the country.

The aim was to wipe out the polio virus in the sewage in the area that has turned some two dozen people into healthy carriers of the virus and threatens to infect  the small minority who had not previously received the IPV.

Our oncology doctor then recommended us to also give the polio vaccination to Raz, since you can never know if he still has a sufficient amount of this vaccination in his body, after the chemotherapy. He was not allowed to take the ‘live’ vaccine but the inactivated since with his weakened immune system there could be a risk of him getting the disease.

For about 6 weeks, while all the smaller kids in the kibbutz we live in got their vaccinations, we had to make sure Raz had a bathroom of his own. Especially not having to share with all the 6-year old friends of his younger brother.

When this is written all, at least in our kibbutz and with Raz, has luckily gone back to normal.